Kenyan opposition claims elections system was hacked

By Andrew Wasike and Magdalene Mukami

NAIROBI, Kenya (AA) - Opposition leader Raila Odinga on Wednesday claimed the electoral commission’s IT system had been hacked as Kenyans voted in presidential and legislative elections.

Odinga, who stood in Tuesday's presidential poll against incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta, said that it was no coincidence that the chief IT official Chris Msando had been tortured and killed a week before the election.

“At about 12.37 p.m. [0937GMT] on Aug. 8, 2017, hackers gained entry into the election database through the identity of Mr. Chris Msando, who was executed barely a week ago,” Odinga, of the National Super Alliance (NASA), told reporters.

The body of Msando, the IT director of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), was found with an arm missing on July 30 in a forest on the outskirts of the capital Nairobi.

“At 12.38 p.m., they loaded an algorithm which is a formula to create a percentage gap of 11 percent between our numbers in the presidential race,” Odinga added. “At 12.41 p.m., they switched on the read and write option on the IEBC 2017 Presidential Election database giving them the power to add or delete anything in the IEBC database.”

Earlier Wednesday, the IEBC released results giving Kenyatta an early lead over Odinga, a former prime minister.

As of 9.00 a.m. local time (0600GMT), Kenyatta was leading with 7,461,933 votes compared to Odinga’s 6,079,136.

“I have lost in my strongholds, which makes no sense,” Odinga said. “What I am saying is we have not had an election.”

He added that the opposition had a separate tallying center that showed he was leading with 8.1 million votes, followed by Kenyatta on 7.1 million votes.

- 52-page report

Odinga released a 52-page report, showing the login of the slain electoral official on the day of the vote, among other pieces of evidence the opposition claimed to have gathered.

In a separate news conference on Wednesday, Raphael Tuju, secretary general of the ruling Jubilee Party, called on Odinga to accept poll results issued by the electoral commission.

“These results are legitimate and did not come out of the blue,” he said. “There is no way you can claim that the results are fake.”

Earlier, Odinga rejected the preliminary presidential results released by the electoral body, calling them “illegal, fictitious, sham and fake”.

“What is going on right now is a sham and a total disregard of Section 39 of the Elections Act which requires the IEBC to stream all form 24s on the public portal,” the NASA candidate said in an early morning news conference.

The electoral commission has said that all the required forms were available for confirmation and has called on the opposition to give them time so that they can be delivered to their offices for scrutiny.

Hours after Odinga made his statement, hundreds of opposition supporters gathered in protest in Nairobi.

In the Mathare slums, Anadolu Agency witnessed hundreds of youths burning tires and wooden racks -- generally used by vegetable vendors -- before a heavy police presence, including two helicopters.

Protests have also been reported by local media in opposition strongholds across the country.