Kenya Supreme Court says the presidential election was not conducted in accordance with the constitution rendering the result “invalid, null and void” and that President Kenyatta was not elected properly.
There will have to be a new election within 60 days. The six-judge bench ruled Friday 4-2 in favor of the petition filed by opposition candidate Raila Odinga. He has claimed that the electronic voting results were hacked into and manipulated in favor of Kenyatta, who had won a second term with 54 percent of the vote.
The court said the Aug. 8 election was not conducted with accordance with the constitution. The court did not place any blame on Kenyatta or his party.
Odinga’s lawyer had asked the court to invalidate Kenyatta’s win, saying a scrutiny of the forms used to tally the votes had anomalies that affected nearly 5 million votes.
Kenya’s electoral commission had said there was a hacking attempt but it failed. International election observers had said they saw no interference with the vote.
Odinga, a longtime opposition candidate and the son of Kenya’s first vice president, had unsuccessfully challenged the results of the 2013 vote.