Judgment Day: Kenyans await Supreme Court verdict on Raila’s contest to Ruto’s win
Kenyans are on Monday awaiting the decision of the Supreme Court on the petitions challenging the election of Deputy President William Ruto as President. If the court invalidates the election, the country will head to a fresh election within 60 days, in accordance with Article 140(3) of the 2010 Constitution.
In case the court confirms the election of Ruto, he will be sworn in as the country’s 5th President on September 13 in a ceremony to be held in public in Nairobi. Ruto will make history as the first president to be elected at the first stab at the presidency.
Azimio la Umoja Presidential Candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua were the primary petitioners in the case that the Supreme Court held hearings last week adjourning on Friday to write their judgment. Both Raila and Ruto have declared that they would accept the verdict of the Supreme Court whichever way it goes.
The petitions anchored their arguments on the manipulation of results forms that were being uploaded to the IEBC portal though scrutiny of the physical forms ordered by the court showed that this was not proven from the sample handled. They have also anchored their argument on the divisions at the IEBC where four Commissioners distanced themselves from the final result announced by Chairman Wafula Chebukati.
The Supreme Court will be issuing its determination on nine issues that arose from the petitions that it had been handling.
The first issue will be determining if the technology put in place by IEBC fulfilled the standards for ensuring the accurate and verifiable outcome of the August 9 poll. This is tied to the second issue which is to establish if there was any tampering with the uploading of forms 34A to the public portal.
The Chief Justice Martha Koome-led court will also determine whether there was a difference between the forms 34A posted to the public portal, those presented to the National Tallying Center, and those provided to agents in various polling stations across the country.
The fourth issue is whether the postponement of the election in Mombasa, Kakamega, Rongai, and five other regions across the country resulted in voter suppression. The court will also seek to determine whether there were unexplained discrepancies between votes cast in various elective positions across the country and those cast in favour of the president.
The Judges will also determine whether the IEBC carried out the verification, tallying, and declaration of results in accordance with the provided constitutional law. The seventh issue is to evaluate whether Ruto received the pre-requisite 50 per cent plus one vote.
The court will also determine whether there were any illegalities and irregularities of a magnitude that would affect the election’s proclaimed result. And the final determination will be on reliefs and orders that the court can grant to the petitioners.