Supreme Court Receives Eight Petitions to Nullify President-elect Ruto’s Victory
Eight petitions were on Monday filed at the Supreme Court seeking to nullify president-elect William Ruto’s victory in the August 9th presidential election.
The petitioners want the election nullified and a fresh election conducted in accordance with the constitution and election laws.
They include Azimio La Umoja-One Kenya presidential candidate Raila Odinga, John Njoroge Kamau, Daniel Kariuki Ngari, Juliah Nyokabi, Khalef Khalifa, Busia senator-elect Okiya Omtatah, Youth Advocacy Africa and gospel singer Reuben Kigame.
Ruto was declared the winner of the August 9th presidential election after garnering 7,176,141, representing 50.49 percent of the total votes.
His main competitor Odinga secured 6,942,930 votes (48.85 percent), followed by Roots Party candidate George Wajackoyah (61,969 votes) and David Mwaure (31,987 votes).
Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua are seeking 23 reliefs among them an order for inspection of IEBC servers, and scrutiny of the rejected and spoilt votes.
They are further seeking an order for scrutiny and forensic audit of the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) kits, IEBC portal, and the presidential election forms (forms 34A, 34B and 34C).
The two want the apex court to issue an order invalidating Ruto’s victory and compelling the electoral commission to organize a fresh presidential election in strict conformity with the Constitution and election laws. They say that IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati should not preside over the fresh election.
Omtatah in his petition wants the presidential elections quashed, arguing that none of the candidates who contested attained 50% plus one vote threshold as required by the constitution.
He argues that the tabulation of the presidential results by the IEBC was mathematically incorrect, claiming that there were at least 140,028 untallied votes.
On his part, Kigame who wanted to vie for the presidency but he was disqualified for failing to meet the threshold argues that the whole process leading up to the results as declared by IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati was marred by irregularities that rendered the final outcome null and void.
“The Petitioner’s dream together with that of other Independent aspirants in exercising their civil and political rights got into jeopardy due to the unreasonableness and discriminatory actions by the first respondent,” Kigame said.
Kigame contends that the electoral commission and Chebukati violated his political and human rights.
The Supreme Court has 14 days from Monday to hear the petition and deliver a verdict.