michael musyoki

The distinction between “results” and “result” becomes clearer when you follow the constitutional and regulatory architecture from Form 34A to Form 34B and finally Form 34C. Form 34A captures the presidential results at the polling station, where the votes are counted and recorded by the Presiding Officer. Those results do not disappear into some national statistical black hole. They move to the constituency, where the Constituency Returning Officer collates the results from the polling stations within that constituency and records them in Form 34B. At that point, we are dealing with the constituency results: the presidential figures for each of Kenya’s 290 constituencies. The 290 constituency results then become the foundation of the national aggregation. Form 34C brings those constituency figures together at the national level and provides the basis upon which the result of the presidential election is established and declared by the IEBC Chairperson. This is where the language of Article 138 becomes significant. The Constitution speaks of “results” in the plural and “result” in the singular. The plural refers to the results generated through the electoral process; the singular refers to the ultimate national presidential result. It is therefore not necessary to invent a second counting exercise at the national tallying centre. The votes have already been counted at the polling stations, the results have been collated and declared at constituency level, and the national task is to aggregate and verify those 290 constituency results before the Chairperson declares the national result. In simple terms: Form 34A gives you polling-station results. Form 34B gives you constituency results. Form 34C gives you the national result. That is the logical movement of the presidential vote: from polling station, to constituency, to national result. The national tallying centre should therefore be a place of transparent aggregation and verification not a second theatre for altering constituency-declared results.