Kenya Supreme Court has rejected Raila Odinga’s challenge to the presidential election result meaning that Willian Ruto is confirmed as the winner of the 9 August poll and is the president-elect.
The Supreme Court finds that petitioners did not provide a watertight case for the nullification of results on the basis that the 50%-plus-one constitutional threshold for an outright win was not met.
It says that William Ruto did get more than 50% plus one vote.
The Supreme Court finds that the power to verify and tally presidential election results vests, not in the chairperson but in the commission. In line with earlier court decisions – the chairperson cannot arrogate to himself the power to verify and tally the results to the exclusion of others.
But the judges took cognisance of the fact that the four commissioners who disputed the final results had taken part in earlier verifications and tallying of the results.
The four commissioners did not produce any document showing the result was compromised and they did not explain why they took part in a verification process which they then said was “opaque”, the chief justice says.
But the judges are critical of the governance of the electoral commission which could produce such a split.
However, this was not enough to nullify the outcome of the poll, the chief justice concluded
