The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has appreciated Kenyans for their continued patience as it continues to collect and tally 2022 election results.
Speaking during a media briefing on Thursday, commissions chairman Wafula Chebukati revealed that they signed an MOU with the media to provide comprehensive and objective coverage of the electoral process hence the results displayed on their screens.
Chebukati further urged Kenyans not to panic due to differences in the results as per various media houses as they are working independently using different criteria which will amount to the same figure by the end of the exercise.
“The final announcement and declaration of the results will be done by the National Returning Officer (Chebukati) here at Bomas. At the end of the tallying, they will be harmonized and will look similar because the results are from the same source. There should be no panic about the difference we are seeing on the media screens,” he said.
He stated that the final announcement and declaration of the presidential results will be done by the national returning officer at the Bomas.
The IEBC chairman said the decision to allow media and other stakeholders including the public to access their result portal was for transparency purposes.
“In the spirit of transparency, the commission gave media access to polling stations, tallying centers, and the results portal to report the progress of the elections results in real-time from one source,” he said.
At the same time, Chebukati announced the arrival of returning officers at the Bomas of Kenya in preparation for the validation of Form 34B returns against Form 34A.
According to the commission’s boss uploading Form, 34A is at 99.84 percent representing 46,156 polling stations.
He pointed out that Form 34A from 73 polling stations remains to be uploaded.