By Wahome Thuku
NAIROBI; KENYA: Mr Uhuru Kenyatta will be sworn in as Kenya’s Fourth President on April 9 after the Supreme Court upheld his election.
The Supreme Court ruled that Uhuru and his running mate in the March 4 presidential vote, William Ruto, were validly elected after garnering 50.07 per cent in the final tally by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
The judges also ruled that rejected votes should not have been factored into the final presidential election tally, meaning that Uhuru will have won the election by a wider margin.
The judges dismissed two petitions challenging Uhuru’s election, including one filed by his challenger, Coalition of Reform and Democracy’s candidate Raila Odinga who obtained 43.7 per cent.
Raila disputed the results of the election, which saw Uhuru secure more than 8,000 votes above the constitutional threshold to avoid a run-off vote.
Abide by ruling
After the judgment read by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, Raila said he did not entirely agree with the findings but he would abide by the verdict.
The Premier wished the President-elect and his administration well and appealed that Kenyans shouldn’t be divided by the Court’s judgment.
“I wish the President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta and his team well,” Raila said in an address from the Prime Minister’s Office in Nairobi.
He urged Kenyans to put behind the dispute over the presidential elections and forge ahead in unity.
“The future of Kenya is bright. Let us not allow the elections to divide us. Let us unite our country,” he said.
The Court validated the election of Uhuru, the son of Kenya’s founding President Jomo Kenyatta, who garnered 6,173,433 votes.
This enabled him to secure 50 per cent plus- one of the total votes cast and at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in 32 counties, eight more than the constitutional requirement. Raila received 5,340,546 votes.
Consequently, Uhuru will be sworn in on April 9, the day that current President Mwai Kibaki will officially vacate office after slightly more than 10 years in power.
The Constitution requires that if the petitions are dismissed, the President-elect must be sworn in on the Tuesday falling a week after the judgment.
In the decision by six Supreme Court judges and which was awaited for the past three weeks, the court also held that the elections were free, fair, transparent and credible and complied with the Constitution.
The court also ruled that rejected votes should not have been included in the final tally of the votes cast in the presidential election.
If the court had ordered a re-computation, results for Uhuru would increase from 50.07 per cent to 50.5 per cent while that of Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) leader Raila Odinga would rise from 43.3 per cent to 43.7 per cent.
The two-page decision was delivered a few minutes after 5pm, taking Chief Justice Willy Mutunga less than three minutes to read. All five other judges were present.
It was expected that the judges would deliver a brief judgment going straight to their declarations and reserve the detailed reasons for a later date. And that marked the end of the contest between Raila’s Cord Coalition and Uhuru’s Jubilee Alliance, which started early last year flowing to the elections and after.
Mutunga only read the declarations on the four issues that were refined by the courts from drafts presented by the lawyers early last week.
The judges will take two weeks to go through the massive paperwork presented during the proceedings to come up with detailed reasons for their decision.
They will specifically concentrate on the four issues in writing their judgment.
Raila first complained of massive rigging of the elections shortly after Uhuru was declared winner on March 9. He immediately announced at a news conference that he would challenge the outcome.
For one week, Cord held news conferences and other meetings updating the country on the preparations for the petition.
On March 16, Raila made the final announcement at his office giving blow-by-blow revelation of the allegations contained in the petition.
The bundles of petition papers were delivered to the Supreme Court Registry amidst colour and drama, accompanied by a host of politicians, lawyers and Cord supporters, where the Chief Registrar Gladys Shollei received them.
They were prepared and filed by the firm of prominent lawyer George Oraro, who led the Cord legal team in the proceedings.
Raila named the IEBC, its chairman Issack Hassan, Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto as respondents. Hassan was the Returning Officer in presidential elections.
For several more days, the two sides kept taunting each other over the outcome of the elections and the state of the petitions until the court reined them in, warning that they should keep off the commentaries and wait for the court to deal with the matter.
Raila challenged virtually every aspect of the elections — from procurement of electronic equipment to registration of voters, actual voting, transmission of results and tallying at Bomas.
He claimed that the commission unlawfully registered an extra 85,000 voters after the December 18, 2012 deadline hence tainting the entire record and the election process.
He wanted the entire process invalidated and fresh elections held. He also wanted the IEBC commissioners held to have violated the law.
Two officials of African Centre for Open Governance (Africog) had filed a second petition challenging the outcome of the elections.
But the third petition was filed by three voters seeking a declaration that rejected votes should not be included in calculating the number of votes cast. Though the petition worked in favour of Uhuru, the court declined to order that the votes cast be recomputed ruling that it had no powers to do so.
The court had practically five days to hear and determine the consolidated petitions after holding the pre-trial conference on Monday. It set aside 15 hours spread in two days within which to hear all the oral submissions.
After Saturday’s ruling, Uhuru and his Deputy-designate William Ruto will be sworn in at the Moi International Sports Centre in Kasarani.
Chief Justice Mutunga will witness the oath of office as required by law.
Uhuru and Ruto will now intensify talks to pick their Cabinet.
Uhuru’s TNA and Ruto’s URP committed to share public appointments on a 50:50 basis in a coalition agreement they registered with the Registrar of Political Parties prior to elections.
British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote to the President-elect to congratulate him and all others elected after the Court’s decision.
“The Prime Minister wrote to President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta today. He congratulated the President-elect and all others elected in Kenya’s elections, upheld today by the Kenyan Supreme Court,” said a Downing Street spokesperson said.
Other congratulatory messages were received from France, the European Union and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development.
At the time of going to press, the Jubilee alliance leaders, including the legal team, were headed to Consolata Shrine in Westlands for thanksgiving prayers.
Celebrations erupted in Jubilee strongholds, including Uhuru’s Gatundu South.
The same was witnessed in Nakuru town where supporters erupted into song and dance waving portraits of Uhuru and Ruto.
Celebrations
With horns blaring, motorists raced up and down the main Kenyatta Avenue street, as hundreds danced across town.
The earliest blow to Raila’s case came on Wednesday when he lost two crucial applications, one to have the court conduct a forensic audit of the presidential elections and a second to have a 900-page affidavit admitted as part of his evidence.
The Prime Minister had applied to have a forensic audit of all the Information Technology (IT) equipment and electronic facilities used by IEBC.
Holding that the register was tainted would have had a possibility of sending the country back to a General Election for all elective positions thus, county representative, women representative, members of the Senate, National Assembly and governors.
Lawyers for respondents had cautioned that the Supreme Court could throw the country into a constitutional crisis since the allegedly tainted register was used for elections of candidates for other positions.
Last night, President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta rallied Kenyans to set aside partisan issues of the electoral contest and to renew nationhood for the country to progress.
Uhuru spoke hours after the Supreme Court upheld his election after the March 4 presidential vote, and reached out to opponents, including his main challenger Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who contested his (Uhuru) election in court.
“I want to assure all Kenyans, including those who did not vote for the Jubilee Coalition and even those who challenged our election, that my government will serve all Kenyans without discrimination,” Uhuru said in a televised address last night, adding: “Our government will be as inclusive as possible”.
