Supreme Court Upholds Ruto's Election Victory
While delivering the ruling at the Milimani Court, Chief Justice Martha Koome noted that...
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The Supreme Court of Kenya has upheld the election of William Ruto as Kenya's fifth president.
In a ruling delivered on Monday, September 5, Chief Justice Martha Koome noted that Ruto had met the constitutional threshold of 50 per cent +1 of the total valid votes cast and amassed 25 per cent of the votes cast in at least 24 counties.
The majority of the seven-judge bench had validated the results which were announced by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
"The Presidential election petitions of 2022 are hereby dismissed, as a consequence we declare the election of the first respondent (Ruto) as president-elect to be valid under article 143 of the constitution," Koome stated.
"We Given the numbers presented to us by IEBC which translate to 14.213,137 divided by two plus one makes which brings 7,106,559. It is our finding that the declared president-elect attained 50 per cent plus one of the votes cast in accordance to the constitution," Koome noted.
William Ruto will be sworn in on or before Tuesday, September 13, 2022. Reacting minutes after the judgement, Azimio la Umoja running mate, Martha Karua, revealed that she had disagreed with the verdict but nonetheless respected it.
Issues that were to be determined by Supreme Court:
- Whether the election met standards of integrity and credibility as per the Constitution
- Whether there was interference with the transmission of forms 34A from polling stations to the IEBC portal
- Whether there was a difference between forms 34A uploaded on the IEBC portal and those received at the National Tallying Centre from polling stations.
- Whether postponement of gubernatorial, parliamentary and ward elections amounted to voter suppression to the detriment of Raila Odinga and Martha Karua.
- Whether there is an unexplained discrepancy between votes cast for the Presidential election and other elective positions.
- Whether IEBC carried out tallying and verification of forms in line with the Constitution.
- Whether the President-Elect, William Ruto, attained the 50 per cent plus one vote threshold.
- Whether irregularities were of such magnitude to affect the outcome of the election.
- What orders the Supreme Court can issue
Here are some of the issues the seven-judge bench ruled on:
IEBC's Technology
The Supreme Court on Monday, September 5, ruled on whether the technology deployed by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) met the required standards.
While delivering the ruling at the Milimani Court, Chief Justice Martha Koome noted that IEBC deployed technology in accordance with the law.
"We are not persuaded by the allegation that the technology deployed by the IEBC failed the standard of Section 86 (A) of the constitution on integrity, verifiability and transparency for the following reasons.
"Whereas it is true that the KIEMS kits failed in 235 polling stations 86,889 voters were granted the right to vote manually and the requisite Form 32A was duly filed. This happened successfully in the Kibwezi constituency and part of Kakamega County.
On Jose Camargo
IEBC had dismissed claims by the main petitioner, Raila Odinga that its system had been breached to allow for original Forms 34A to be deleted and replaced with doctored forms which were uploaded to the portal.
“There was no evidence of a man in the middle server configured to IEBC’s VPN network and no evidence was produced to show that the Chairperson of IEBC and staff were part of the alleged conspiracy to stage the transmission process
"There were no significant differences captured between the Forms 34A uploaded on the public portal & physical Forms 34A delivered to Bomas that would have affected the overall outcome of the presidential election. There were no unexplainable discrepancies between votes cast for presidential candidates and other elective positions," she said.
On Verifying Presidential Results
The seven-judge bench ruled that the IEBC had carried out the verification and tallying of the presidential votes before announcing the results.
"We take cognisance of the fact that the fourth, fifth sixth and seventh respondents actively participated in the verification and tallying exercise from the beginning until just before the declaration of results to nullify an election," CJ Koome ruled.
The court further dismissed Raila's claims that the Forms 34A on the Commission's portal were different from those that were drawn from the polling stations.
On Postponing Kakamega, Mombasa Polls and Voter Turnout
The judges had ruled that the postponement of the elections in Kakamega and Mombasa counties, Kitui Rural, Kacheliba Rongai and Pokot South Constituencies had not affected the voter turnout and eventually not the outcome of the presidential race.
The apex court also ruled that the discrepancies between the presidential votes and those cast in other elective seats were accounted for with IEBC explaining that prisoners and Kenyans in the diaspora only voted for the head of state.
On 50 + 1
Koome determined that the 50 per cent plus one threshold that was required to win the election was met by Ruto and was sufficiently achieved by way of calculations announced by IEBC chairperson, Wafula Chebukati
"We have found that the rounding off done by IEBC is correct. The petitioners did not also provide watertight evidence to show that none of the candidates met the 50 plus 1 requirement.
"We affirm that rejected votes cannot be added to votes cast when calculating whether the candidates meet the 50 plus 1 threshold," Koome stated.
The Supreme Court judges. /CITIZEN DIGITAL
With respect to allegations of voter stuffing in Ruto's stronghold, the apex court determined that the petitioners did not produce any evidence to support their claims.
"The petitioner did not produce any evidence to support the claim that there was any voter stuffing in Rift Valley and Mount Kenya region. We find therefore there are no major discrepancies in the number of votes cast for the presidency and that of the other elective seats," the court ruled.
