By Wahome Thuku
Nairobi, Kenya: The Supreme Court will this morning begin hearing the three petitions challenging the outcome of the March 4 presidential election.
But the court is evidently rushing against the timelines set by the Constitution, which require it to determine the petitions by Saturday.
The phrase that the court is constrained by time has been repeated by virtually each of the six judges and all the more than ten lawyers who have addressed it.
But the lawyers last evening disagreed on how much time each of the parties should be allocated to make oral submissions and present their case.
The court has consolidated all the three cases and decided that they should be heard together.
Two of the petitions, including one filed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, are challenging the declaration of Uhuru Kenyatta as winner. The other two petitions are filed by officials of a local NGO, Africog.
But the third petition filed by three voters is in favour of Uhuru. It seeks a declaration the rejected votes should not have been included in the final tally. On Tuesday Raila’s lawyer George Oraro proposed that the parties be given equal time.
Mr Oraro proposed that the case filed by the three voters be allocated one hour to be shared with the Attorney General who has been admitted as a friend of the court.
Lawyer Ahmednassir Abdulahi representing the electoral commission chairman Issack Hassan proposed that the court first deals with the case filed by the voters.
