I Won August 8th Election, Raila Maintains

Nasa leader Raila Odinga has maintained that he trounced President Uhuru Kenyatta in the August 8th presidential election that was quashed by the Supreme Court.

In an interview with Al Jazeera English, the former Prime Minister claimed the results of last month's poll were doctored to give his fierce rival, President Uhuru Kenyatta, a underserved victory.

Raila described the outcome declared by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on August 11th as a great “injustice”.

IEBC announced that President Kenyatta won the the poll by garnering with 8.2 million votes compared to 6.8 million votes for Raila.

“I know I won the elections, and the results were just manipulated,” Raila told Al Jazeera’s UpFront programme that aired on Friday night.

“This is what we call an injustice.”

The Orange Democratic Movement leader rejected the results even before they were declared, citing manipulation by people he claimed hacked IEBC ICT systems, a claim denied by IEBC.

Jubilee's President Uhuru Kenyatta has also insisted that he won the poll fairly and accused the Supreme Court of staging a "judicial coup" against the will of Kenyans.

He described the nullification of the poll as "monstrous injustice" and a setback to Kenya's democracy.

The Supreme Court cited "irregularities and illegalities" in the poll, making it hard to establish the winner.

During the interview, Raila further slammed Deputy President William Ruto for the recent tweet, which asked, “For how long will one man, unable to win elections, continue to blackmail 45m Kenyans using threats of violence, chaos, bloodshed and anarchy.”

Raila said that the country's second in command is suffering from amnesia.

“Ruto basically suffers from amnesia,” Odinga responded.
“In 2007, he was with me. He was in the frontline fighting against the rigging of the election.”

“Mr Ruto lives in denial. Because he himself has witnessed election rigging first hand,” he added.

He also expressed displeasure with last month's election observers, saying some did not understand their job.

“We were very disappointed with the position taken by the international observers, it really brought to question the role of international observation of elections,” he said.

He assured he was ready to accept the results of the repeat elections if its held in a free and fair manner.

“If I lose elections fairly, I will accept and tell my supporters we lost fairly.”

“But if there is a rigging of elections, the people are entitled to protest. As you know, our Constitution provides for peaceful demonstrations, picketing, strikes, and so on,” he said.