By Website Writer; Kenya’s Supreme Court in a unanimous decision has on Monday upheld William Ruto’s win in the August 9, 2022, Presidential elections.
This brings to rest opposition candidate Raila Odinga’s assertions that the electoral process was tainted by rigging.
Chief Justice Martha Koome noted the reaction following the declaration of 9 August election shows that Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has not yet garnered universal public confidence in the management of elections.
CJ Koome said that affidavits filed in court must only deal with facts swearing to falsehoods is a criminal offence as she mentioned John Githongo and Julie Soweto’s presentations in court.
The election, according to Chief Justice Martha Koome, was free, fair, transparent, and credible. Raila Odinga, joined by seven other petitions, demanded that the election results be annulled due to widespread fraud. Odinga claimed that the electoral commission’s chairman, Wafula Chebukati, staged a civilian coup, that election technology was hacked, and that votes were taken away from him and given to his opponent.
After three days of case hearing, a seven-judge court ruled that the eight petitions calling for the elections to be canceled were “without merit”.
The Supreme Court had identified 9 major issues including reliefs that should be given to the court. CJ Martha Koome while reading the judgment dismissed all of them in support of IEBC hence upholding Ruto’s win.
Here are the Presidential Petition Issues and judgements:
Issue 1: Whether the technology deployed by the IEBC met the standards to guarantee accurate and verifiable results.
CJ Koome: We are not persuaded that the technology failed the standards of Article 86A on integrity.
Issue 2: Whether there was interference with the uploading and transmission of Forms 34A.
CJ Koome: No credible evidence was provided to prove that anyone accessed the IEBC system to intercept Form 34As.
Issue 4: Whether the postponement of some elections resulted in voter suppression.
CJ Koome: IEBC illustrated with examples to our satisfaction that there was no nexus between the postponement of elections and voter turnout.
Issue 5: Whether there were unexplainable discrepancies between the votes cast for presidential candidates and other elective positions.
CJ Koome: There were no unexplained significant discrepancies; no ballot stuffing was proven.
Issue 6: The power to verify and tally presidential election results vest not in the IEBC chairperson but the commission.
CJ Koome: However, the 4 commissioners actively participated in the verification and tallying process.
CJ Koome on Issue 7: It is our finding that the declared president-elect attained 50%+1 of all the votes cast in accordance with Article 138 of the constitution.
She also questioned if its right to nullify an election on the basis of a last-minute boardroom rupture on the opaque allegations by the 4 IEBC commissioners.
To do this would be tantamount to subjecting the sovereign will of the Kenyan people to the quorum antics of IEBC, this we cannot do, CJ Koome said.
“We know that some 6 million Kenyans will not be happy today but that’s the nature of work we do. What we hope you can advise clients and the Kenyan people that that was what was expected; one side had to win,” DCJ Philomena Mwilu said.
This year’s election passed peacefully and the now official election of William Ruto will see him get sworn in on Tuesday, 13th September 2022.
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