Raila is a Perennial Loser Seeking a Handshake, Ruto Tells the Supreme Court

President-elect William Ruto has urged the Supreme Court to dismiss a petition filed by Azimio La Umoja-One Kenya coalition presidential candidate Raila Odinga challenging his victory.

In a 256-page response to Odinga’s petition, Ruto described the ODM leader as a perennial loser who is after a handshake to share the government, citing his 2018 pact with President Kenyatta and a similar one with the late retired president Mwai Kibaki in 2008.

Ruto, who was declared the winner of the August 9th presidential election after garnering 7,176,141 (50.49 percent), termed Odinga’s petition as a tragicomedy akin to William Shakespeare’s words.

“The overall impression that the reading of the petition and the surrogate petitions left in my mind, especially when viewed against the 1st Petitioner’s thirty-year pattern of strikingly similar acts after every presidential election is that of a tragicomedy akin to William Shakespear’s words about a story full of sound and fury, signifying nothing and controversies that are much ado about nothing,” Ruto says in an affidavit filed by his lawyers.

“The first common feature that underlies Odinga’s thirty-year pattern of strikingly similar acts after every presidential election is disingenuous disputation of presidential election results as a means of forcing the winner to share power through unconventional and extra-constitutional government arrangements popularly known as handshake.”

Odinga, who emerged second in the race with 6,942,930 votes (48.85 percent), wants Ruto’s victory nullified on grounds that the election commission bungled the presidential election in his favor.

He wants the apex court to declare him duly elected president or order a fresh election in strict conformity with the constitution and electoral laws.