Kenya: Kriegler Team Ends Public Hearings
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The Nation (Nairobi)
29 August 2008
Posted to the web 29 August 2008
Sam Kiplagat
Nairobi
The Independent Review Commission has concluded its public hearings.
At Friday's session, Justice Johann Kriegler faulted an academic for presenting "inflammatory material" based on incomplete information.
Mr Justice Kriegler, who leads the seven-member team, said that a report submitted by Dr Karuti Kanyinga on behalf of the Kenya for Peace, Truth and Justice (KPTJ) coalition was unacceptable because it did not consult source documents produced by the Electoral Commission of Kenya during the 2007 General Election.
Specifically, the probe team boss said that the report, Report on Fraud, only took Form 16 entries into account, rather than looking at the Form 16A entries on which they are based.
A Form 16A is filled for each specific polling station, whereas the more general Form 16 aggregates results at the constituency level.
The report, obtained by the Saturday Nation, suggests that inconsistencies between the parliamentary and presidential votes are evidence of "the artificial production or subtraction of votes at the ward and constituency level." It claims that the discrepancies were large enough to tilt the final outcome.
According to the report, the parliamentary turnout was 172,260 votes higher than the civic.
"I have some fundamental problems with your thesis," said Mr Justice Kriegler.
"How can you come up with an inference of fraud without looking at the source documents?"
Dr Kanyinga responded by saying that the Form 16 data used by the KPTJ coalition was acceptable because it came from the ECK.
"Whatever we have is also valid because we obtained it from the ECK."
"I suggest you looked at that final form and you didn't look at whether it was a correct representation of the 16A forms," Mr Justice Kriegler replied.
"There has been a lot of debate on fraud and this prompted our mission...Maybe we are differing on concepts. It is difficult to apportion blame," Dr Kanyinga responded.
The judge went on: "How was there fraud? Where? Who did what? I want you tell us where that fraud was committed."
After Dr Kanyinga could not give a satisfactory answer, Mr Justice Kriegler faulted him for not performing adequate analysis or investigations.
"You say fraud, rigging and everybody follows you and treats that as the truth," he said. "This is the basis on which people get killed in this country."
The retired South African judge said that the coalition of non-governmental and human rights organisations was free to furnish a written statement to the Commission with any complaints or clarifications.
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The Commission's secretary said lawyers on all sides will make submissions throughout next week as the Commission begins to draft its final report.
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