CORD’s 900-page affidavit raises furore in Supreme Court

As the case got underway, Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s defence team was accused of changing the nature of their petition along the way.

Lawyers representing President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta, his deputy designate William Ruto and Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Isaack Hassan accused CORDof changing the case midstream and making new demands in a fresh application he filed on Saturday.

The lawyers in turn asked the Supreme Court to decide whether a 900-page affidavit filed by Raila on Saturday had been taken to court out of time and whether the issues he raised in it should be responded to.

They claimed that Raila’s team had served them with the document raising issues touching on 122 electoral areas. This was in addition to what he filed a week earlier touching on 33,000 polling stations.

Turn heat

“This is a metamorphosis of the petitioner’s case. We responded comprehensively to his first allegations and new issues were raised,” said Uhuru’s lawyer Fred Ngatia. I will seek leave of court to apply for determination of whether the new issues can be raised for the court to determine,” he added.

“We are now facing a different case from what we had at first,” said Hassan’s lawyer Ahmednassir Abdulahi.

The remarks were echoed by Ruto’s advocate Katwa Kigen, who said he would also ask for determination on whether Raila’s affidavit should be responded to. But Raila’s lawyer George Oraro turned the heat on the three respondents and the IEBC, accusing them of trying to avoid the issues in court.

He said their first case was about the tallying of votes. The IEBC filed a response explaining how they had conducted the elections efficiently. This prompted Raila to file the latest affidavit on issues arising from that response.

The respondents also raised issues with a draft of contested and uncontested issues prepared by the court. Lawyers Ngatia and Ahmednassir claimed some issues raised by their clients were not captured in the draft.

Polling areas

“We must first polling areas. look at the issues that can be legitimately canvassed at the Supreme Court within the petition context,” he said, as he tried to guide the court on how to proceed.

The court directed all the lawyers to hold their conference on the sidelines of the proceedings to decide which issues were contested and which ones were not.

Earlier, another lawyer Kethi Kilonzo representing officials of a local NGO, demanded clarifications on register that was marked during the voting and one described by the IEBC as Special Register, which contained the names of those whose biometric details had not been captured.

IEBC lawyer Paul Nyamodi explained the register is in 700,000 parts and was still kept in the polling areas. He said the commission was willing to provide it but that would take some time.

The lawyers agreed that one of the petitions filed by three voters should be heard separately since it raised only one issue.

It’s seeking determination whether rejected votes should be used in tallying the votes cast.