The Supreme Court judgment is now available and every voter who wishes to can access the same online.
Its release is a bit underwhelming, coming two weeks after the judges of the ‘Mutunga Court’ ruled that the election of Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta as President of Kenya as declared by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission is valid.
Still the judges make important conclusions. Among them is their recommendation that some officials of the IEBC be investigated for possible criminal prosecution over the manner in which the commission acquired electronic voter identification devices.
The latter failed abysmally during the March 4 elections and were at the heart of the petition filed by the loser of the presidential contest, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
The judges said it is likely the acquisition process for the EVIDs “was marked by competing interests involving impropriety, or even criminality”.
Save the blushes
We have no doubt the Director of Public Prosecutions is studying the judgment keenly with a view to possibly ordering further investigations to close this chapter.
Following the ruling by the Supreme Court, it is certainly not enough to rely on the IEBC’s promised internal audit if the Government intends to get to the bottom of the matter, and it should. Indeed the Government has every interest having saved the IEBC its blushes when the procurement process stalled last year.
The judges have also warned that IEBC must come up with a reliable backup for the Principal Voters Register, as this is the heart of any election.
They also ruled that so far, from local and international precedence, electronic technology isn’t yet reliable enough to be used an exclusive voting solution and can’t be regarded as irreversible or permanent.
At the end of the day, not everyone will be happy with the ruling of the Supreme Court, least of all those on the losing side, but the judges have done their duty, and in so doing contributed in no small measure to strengthening respect for democracy and the rule of law.
