Constitution bench to arbiter on Kenya’s election soon

September 5, 2022

(3 minutes read)

Kenya’s Supreme Court will come out with its decision on the elections held recently. Losing opposition candidate Raila Odinga is among those challenging the results citing a volley of issues in the election process. Deputy President William Ruto was declared the winner earlier this month with just over 50% of the votes. The margin of votes is very narrow between the winner and the second candidate, who got the maximum votes

The charges against the winner, Ruto’s party include criminal subversion and demand for declaring the vote null and void. The election, which everyone thought went as per the rule, suddenly turned chaotic in the final minutes before the declaration. The electoral commission was split in the decision with a majority of commissioners alleging that they couldn’t support the result pointing out the chairman committed misconduct by declaring the results without following due process. Kenya is East Africa’s one of the most stable democracies. The commission posted more than 46,000 results forms online from polling stations for anyone to do the math themselves.

The petitioners are putting the blame squarely on commission chairman Wafula Chebukati, who declared Ruto the winner, which the losing parties claim was to subvert the sovereign will of the people of Kenya and overthrow the constitutional order by declaring results that had not been completely tallied and verified.

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Twenty-seven constituencies were reportedly left out when the chairman of the commission declared the results. That they say would have affected the outcome of the presidential election. It also alleges manipulation of some result forms and computer data. The election was very close with Odinga receiving almost 49% of the votes.