Kenya’s Supreme Court has rejected challenges to the presidential election and upheld Deputy President William Ruto’s win as the 5th president elect of Kenya.
Raila Odinga filed a petition to Kenya’s top court last month, claiming he had “enough evidence” to show he had in fact won the election.
Judges spent the last two weeks sifting through boxes of evidence to establish if any irregularities were substantial enough to nullify the election.
In a judgment read by Chief Justice Martha Koome, the seven-judge bench unanimously ruled that the August 9 presidential election was conducted in line with the country’s constitution. She methodically listed the court’s response to the nine issues at the heart of the case.
While delivering the judgment, Chief Justice Martha Koome said the technology used by the Independent and Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) met the standards of “integrity, verifiability, security, and transparency.”
She said that no credible evidence was presented to prove that anyone accessed the forms to intercept, detain or store forms 34A temporarily before they were uploaded to the public portal.
“The allegation that 11,000 forms 34A were affected by staging were not proved. A review of some of the logs produced as evidence of staging shows that they were either from the 2017 Presidential election or they were outright forgeries,” said CJ Koome.
On whether Venezuelan Jose Carmago accessed the RTS and interfered with the results, CJ Koome said that it turned out to be no more than hot air.
“This is a unanimous decision. The petitions are hereby dismissed. As a consequence, we declare the first respondent (Ruto) as president-elect,” Chief Justice Martha Koome said.
Ruto will be sworn in on September 13, becoming Kenya’s fifth president.