Kenya’s top court to rule on disputed presidential election
By Aaron Ross
NAIROBI (Reuters) -Kenya’s Supreme Court docket will resolve on Monday whether or not to uphold or nullify the results of final month’s presidential election, a ruling anxiously awaited in a rustic scarred by earlier bouts of poll-related violence.
The seven-member courtroom will rule following three days of oral arguments final week by attorneys representing the 2 principal candidates and rival camps of election commissioners.
Opposition chief Raila Odinga, making his fifth presidential bid, says Deputy President William Ruto’s slim win was the product of large fraud. 4 out of seven election commissioners disowned the end result introduced by the fee chairman, saying the tallying had been opaque.
The Supreme Court docket made historical past within the final election in 2017 by annulling President Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory over Odinga due to procedural irregularities.
Kenyatta prevailed in a re-run that Odinga boycotted.
About 100 folks have been killed in election-related clashes that yr. This time, protests briefly broke out in a number of Odinga strongholds after the election fee chair declared Ruto the victor on Aug. 15, however Odinga urged supporters to remain peaceable and the streets have remained calm since.
Tempers have primarily flared on-line, the place Odinga and Ruto’s partisans have bombarded social media with usually outlandish claims and counter-claims.
FRAUD ACCUSATIONS
Odinga, who was backed by the term-limited Kenyatta on this election, has alleged {that a} staff working for Ruto hacked into the fee’s system and changed real footage of polling station end result kinds with faux ones, rising Ruto’s share.
“The proof that has been introduced by the petitioner exhibits a properly orchestrated and fraudulent scheme that was executed with navy precision,” Odinga’s lawyer, Philip Murgor, instructed the courtroom on Friday.
Odinga and the 4 dissident commissioners additionally accuse fee chairman Wafula Chebukati of violating electoral legislation by unilaterally finishing up the vote tally and declaring the end result. The official numbers confirmed Ruto receiving 50.49%, sufficient to keep away from a second spherical run-off.
Ruto and Chebukati have rejected all of those allegations. Ruto’s authorized staff dismissed Odinga’s claims as a “shock and awe” technique that lacks concrete proof.
If the courtroom nullifies the end result, a brand new election should be organised inside 60 days. The courtroom’s determination is ultimate.
Kenya is a key Western ally in an unstable area, contributing troops to peacekeeping missions in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It additionally hosts the regional headquarters of many international corporations and organisations.
Whereas usually secure, it has seen repeated cases of election-related violence, usually alongside ethnic strains.
Greater than 1,200 have been killed in clashes after the 2007 election, when Odinga accused then-President Mwai Kibaki’s occasion of large rigging.
(Reporting by Aaron Ross;Modifying by Andrew Cawthorne)
