Supreme Court to issue full poll petition verdict on Tuesday

Supreme court in session during the presidential election petition early April[Photo:file]

By Wahome Thuku

NAIROBI; KENYA: The Supreme Court will on Tuesday deliver its detailed judgment on the four petitions that sought to challenge the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as the forth President of Kenya.

The judgment, expected to be delivered in open court will be the final stage of the three cases, two of which were dismissed and a third one allowed.

The six Supreme Court judges will be explaining in details the reasoning that led to their validation of the March 4, election of Uhuru and why they dismissed two of the petition one filed by Cord Presidential candidate Raila Odinga who was Uhuru’s main challenger in the elections.

The judgment will deal with the four questions that the court set for determination.

One question was whether Uhuru and his running mate Wiliam Ruto were validly elected and constitutionally declared winners by the IEBC. The court held on March 30, that the two were validly elected.

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They also answered the second issue that the presidential election was conducted in a free and fair, transparency and whether it was in compliance with the constitution and all other relevant laws.

The court also ruled on the third issue holding that rejected votes should not be included in determining the final tally of votes in favour of each candidate. The judges however ordered on the forth issue that every party should pay its own costs of the petitions.

The judges delivered a two page determination and announced they would give the detailed judgment in two weeks which expires on Saturday.

Uhuru was subsequently sworn in, at a colourful ceremony held at Kasarani Sports Centre on Tuesday and attended by several heads of African states and heads of missions.

The judges are expected to deal exhaustively with their finding on the tallying of presidential results, the failure of the electronic identification of voters and transmission of results, the flaw said to have been identified in the voter register and claims that there were more voters than those registered in some areas.

The court will explain why they rejected the plea by Raila that the entire election be invalidated and that fresh polls be held in 60 days as per the constitution.

Raila had also sought a declaration that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioners held to have violated the law.

A second petition had been filed by two officials of African Center for Open Governance (Africog) challenging the outcome of the elections.

But the third petition is filed by three voters was seeking a declaration that rejected votes should not be included in calculating the number of votes cast.

The judges will also give their reasons on how they determined that rejected votes should not be included in the final tally of the presidential votes cast.