The United Opposition is fighting to have the National Tallying Centre (NTC) abolished on grounds that it is used to create a parallel system of verification at the national level.
Democratic Party (DP) leader Justin Muturi says the Constitution did not envision and does not authorise the NTC to undertake the role already allocated to constituency Returning Officers.
Articles 86 (b), 86 (c), 138 (2), 138(3), 138(4), and 138(10) of the Constitution establish that presidential results are tallied, verified, and declared at the constituency level.
He argues that the results are binding and that they can not be reopened, retallied, or revised at any other centre.
Muturi insists the role of the IEBC Chairperson is strictly clerical: to receive the 290 results, add them up, and declare the winner.
“The consequences of this illegality have been dramatic and costly. We have seen presidential elections nearly derailed at the national tallying stage. We have witnessed confusion over which results are final,” Muturi said.
“We have observed arbitrary stoppages, selective access to results, quarrels over servers, and a presidential election of 2022 that ended with a bitterly divided IEBC Commission. The National Tallying Centre has become synonymous with mistrust,” he added.
Already, the United Opposition through Wiper Leader Kalonzo Musyoka have filed a case in the High Court seeking to invalidate Sections 39, 39(1C), 39(1G) of the Elections Act and Regulation 83(2) of the Elections (General) Regulations.
By treating constituency results as subject to confirmation by the Chairperson or County Returning Officers, Muturi says these statutes drag Kenya back into the centralised, opaque practices that the 2010 reforms were designed to abolish.
“It calls for the removal of all illegal verification powers assigned to the IEBC Chairperson and County Returning Officers. It demands public posting of the final results at each constituency. It seeks the restoration of the Constitution’s decentralised, tamper-resistant model of election results management,” Muturi says of the legal battle.
The former Attorney General and ex-National Assembly Speaker adds that the United Opposition’s petition is, therefore, not about partisan advantage but is all about restoring constitutional fidelity.
“It is about ensuring that institutions operate within the limits of their power. It is about preventing a repeat of the Bomas drama of 2022 and all similar controversies before it. Most importantly, it is about building trust in a system that has grown dangerously opaque.”
Kalonzo’s petition is a second matter referred to the high court determination following a similar case HCCHRPET E757 of 2025 filed by Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah.
On November 11 2025, Justice Bahati Mwamuye certified the case as urgent and set the 7 to 11 of November as hearing dates of the matter virtually.
by GEOFFREY MOSOKU
