The clock is ticking to Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on Kenya’s 2022 presidential election petition filed by perennial presidential candidate Raila Amolo Odinga and his running mate Martha Wangari Karua challenging the declaration of William Samoei Ruto as the elected fifth president of the Republic of Kenya.
As the Supreme Court judges retreated to file their judgements on Friday, it was already clear that a total of nine issues will be used to reach a decision as to whether to nullify or uphold Ruto’s election victory.
Even when they fired questions at the lawyers of the petitioners and respondents on Wednesday and Thursday, the judges were clearly seeking the parties’ positions on the nine issues.
Here are the issues that will either make or break Odinga (or Ruto) are summarized below:
Constitutional Threshold
The petitioners argued that Ruto did not attain the 50 per cent plus one of the total votes cast as required by the Constitution. The highest law of the land also requires that the winning candidate should garner at least 25 per cent of the votes in 24 counties.
With the petitioners claiming that Ruto did not meet this threshold, and having listened to the respondents’ lawyers, the seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court will on Monday tell Kenyans if Ruto attained this threshold.
Technology Standards
The Chief Justice Martha Koome-led Supreme Court will also decide whether the technology that the Wafula Chebukati Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) deployed in conducting the 2022 presidential election met the requirements and standards of integrity, verifiability, security and transparency. This is related to the key question of whether the results released by the commission were accurate and verifiable.
Were the Forms Similar?
The petitioners also alleged that the results announced at the polling stations were different from what was submitted and uploaded by the IEBC at Bomas of Kenya where the National Tallying Centre was located.
Koome and six other judges will give their verdict on whether the contents of the Forms 34A at polling stations and Forms 34B at constituency level were similar to the Bomas ones.
Transmission of Results
The Supreme Court bench is also expected to determine if some unscrupulous people interfered with the transmission of results from the polling stations to the IEBC portal.
Forms 34A Uploading
The justices of the highest court in the land will also decide if they are convinced that the forms uploaded on the IEBC portal are similar to the ones at the polling stations or if they were altered.
Tallying, verification and declaration
Did the IEBC conduct the verification, tallying and declaration of the results in accordance with articles 138(3c) and 138(10) of Kenya’s Constitution?.
Substantial irregularities
Were there irregularities that are substantial enough to have affected the final outcome in a substantial manner, and therefore necessitating the nullification of the election results so that a repeat poll can be held within 60 days from Monday? Were there no substantial illegalities to have substantially affected the outcome, and therefore Ruto should be sworn in as president of September 13?
Differences in Votes Compared to Governor, Senator, MCA Races for Same Constituencies
Were there substantially unexplained differences between the number of votes for the presidential poll and the other elections for the elective positions of governors, senators, women representatives, national assembly representatives and Members of County Assemblies? If any, did these substantially affect the outcome of the presidential election?
Postponement of Elections for Mombasa, Kakamega
Did the postponement of elections — save for the presidential poll — in Kakamega and Mombasa hours before August 09 deliberately suppress voter turnout? Did this disadvantage Odinga?
Meanwhile, a respected US organization has claimed that the Supreme Court will rule in favour of William Ruto and send Odinga into more tears. (Read this organization’s statement Here).
It should be remembered that during the petition hearing, Raila Odinga’s lawyers dropped a ‘bombshell’ when they presented ‘shocking evidence’ to prove that Venezuelan national Jose Camargo changed election results to give William Ruto victory. (Read Story Here).
