Uhuru blow-by-blow response to Raila’s petition against win

Lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi and other Jubilee lawyers when they filed President Uhuru's response to Raila's Odinga's election petition last night. [David Gichuru, Standard

President Uhuru Kenyatta Thursday night gave a detailed response to Opposition leader Raila Odinga’s claims of electoral irregularities in the Supreme Court petition challenging his victory.

In his 10-page affidavit, Uhuru took issue with Raila for disparaging his win and alleging that he and his deputy William Ruto are “computer-generated” leaders, saying that the huge margin of over one million votes left no doubt that he won fair and square.

“Despite such a clear poll victory, the 1st Petitioner (Raila) has continuously disparaged the electoral win and coined such demeaning remarks as ‘computer-generated leaders’. The Deputy President and I are not computer-generated leaders (“vifaranga vya computer”). The electoral victory was effected by the Kenyan voters,” Uhuru swore.

The President said the difference between his votes and Raila’s was 1,401,286, a significant margin that demonstrated the sovereign will of the people.

To show the performance of his party as a sign of his win, the President illustrated in his affidavit the map of Kenya with almost two-thirds of it presented in red showing Jubilee Party wins and one-third in blue showing areas where Raila and the National Super Alliance won.

Aggressive campaigns

Uhuru attributed his victory to aggressive campaigns with his deputy that saw them attend more than 600 rallies across the country.

“In addition, during the campaign period, the Deputy President and I made significant inroads in areas hitherto regarded as Opposition zones,” Uhuru said.

He said Jubilee won a majority of positions in the other five elections for governor, Senate, woman representative, National Assembly, and Members of the County Assembly.

The President submitted a map of Kenya showing large swathes painted in the ruling coalition’s colours to demonstrate Jubilee’s resounding victory across all seats.

Uhuru explained Jubilee Party won 25 seats each for the positions of governor, senator and woman representative. In addition, the ruling coalition secured a majority of seats in the National Assembly (140), with the second party, ODM, garnering 61 seats.

Uhuru explained Jubilee had 582 elected Members of the County Assembly against the second party, ODM’s 338.

He explained that the electoral victory was consequent to the great efforts made to transform the country; delivery of promises in the Jubilee manifesto and the inclusive government that he presided over.

Uhuru described Jubilee’s victory in the General Election as “remarkable, demonstrable and cannot be assailed in any democratic society”.

“Our strategy succeeded as demonstrated by the electoral results in all the six elections as depicted by the various graphs in paragraph 7 and 8 above,” Uhuru argued.

Contrary to claims by Raila that the election was not free and fair, the President stated that the polls were conducted peacefully and in accordance with the law and international practice.

He swore that the vague and general accusation made against him by Raila were untrue, without any backing and could not be proved in any court.

“I deny that I contravened the rule of law and the principles of the conduct of a free and fair election through the use of intimidation, coercion of public officers and improper influence of voters as pleaded by Mr Odinga. The allegations are devoid of any evidentiary or legal basis,” he swore.

The President further tore into the claims of electoral malpractice made by one of Raila’s witnesses, Nyangasi Oduwo, saying none of his claims were true. He denied ever corruptly influencing voters as claimed by the NASA leader, and accused Raila of dragging the Deputy President into the claims without giving him opportunity to respond as one of the respondents in the petition.

Government officials

The President said he did not intimidate any Government officials on the campaign trail, and also denied violating the electoral code of conduct by launching projects and dishing out goodies to the public during the campaigns.

“I deny that while addressing campaign rallies in Makueni, I threatened local chiefs who were allegedly not campaigning for me. My remarks on that occasion were reported out of context. The true position is that I was cautioning chiefs not to depart from their obligation to maintain political neutrality,” said Uhuru.

He added that he was not aware of any Cabinet secretaries who actively campaigned for him and that in any event, Section 23 of the Leadership and Integrity Act exempted Cabinet secretaries from the requirement of political neutrality.

The President also defended a massive media campaign launched by the Government during the elections to promote Jubilee achievements over the last five years, saying that they too, (Opposition) had freedom of expression to tell the public what they had achieved.

He reiterated that the work of Government, including launching projects and compensating citizens affected by the 2007-2008 post-election violence, was continuous and not suspended during the election period, and could form a basis for challenging his election victory.

Deputy presidential chief agent Winifred Guchu argued that there were no significant numerical discrepancies between Form 34A (polling station results) and Form 34B (constituency tally) as alleged by Dr Oduwo in his affidavit in support of Raila’s petition.

“I now produce a report that demonstrates that after reconciling discrepancies in the forms attached to Oduwo’s affidavit, the net effect is that the petitioner’s tally improves by 595 votes while that of JP candidates decreases by 1199 votes.”

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