Jubilee and NASA will hire lawyers to act as constituency chief agents during polling day.
Advocate Danstan Omari told the media that NASA hatched this plan long ago and formed a team of lawyers across the 47 counties.
“NASA formed 47 teams of lawyers long ago. In every county, there is a team of lawyers. Jubilee is just trying to catch up now,” said the advocate.
The enlisting of the “learned friends” at the heart of the polls signifies the extent both coalitions can go to protect their votes.
Besides forming the vote-protection machinery for Jubilee and NASA, they will be required to document any peculiar happenings to act as evidence incase there is a Presidential petition at the Supreme Court.
They will monitor the voting process in polling stations while another set of lawyers will be monitoring the tallying process at the constituency tallying centers.
However, a top official in Jubilee said though they will have lawyers on board, they will not be the party’s agents.
They will be volunteers who will be advising grassroots representative in a move to eliminate any mischief that may arise.
“We have lawyers in the whole country who are Jubilee supporters. We want them to volunteer to be able to verify that what the returning officers are announcing is what is coming from the polling stations.”
He said that in the event there are anomalies pointed out in results declaration form by the lawyers, they will not append any signature on it.
A source in NASA said the enlisting of lawyers at polling and tallying centers will also be to ensure that security agents on the ground do not interfere with either of the process-voting and tallying.
NASA Presidential candidate Raila Odinga has in the past few days sensationally maintained that Jubilee has roped in the military in a bid to rig elections.
In 2013’s Presidential petition filed by Cord, Supreme Court Judges led by former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga threw out the case citing lack of compelling evidence on the opposition’s side.
Inspired by this, NASA is not taking any chances this time round.
“The 2013 general election forms the basis of the paranoia we are seeing from NASA. They [NASA] now believe the Elections Law has been amended and mistakes Parliament made have been corrected by the courts. Therefore, in the question of 2017 elections NASA believes there shall never be any form of rigging,” stated Omari.