The Supreme Court of Kenya has upheld President-elect William Ruto’s win in the August 9 General Elections.
The ruling was delivered by Chief Justice Martha Koome on Monday, September 5.
Ruto met the constitutional threshold of 50 per cent +1 of the total valid votes cast.
He also garnered 25 per cent of the votes cast in at least 24 counties.
“We declare the election of the first respondent as valid. It is our finding that the declared President-elect attained 50 per cent plus one of the of the votes cast in accordance to the Constitution,” Koome noted.
The Court addressed a number of issues including claims by the main petitioner, Raila Odinga, that the IEBC system had been infiltrated.
In the petition, Raila claimed that the system was hacked to allow for original forms 34A to be deleted and replaced with doctored forms.
However, the Supreme Court dismissed the same arguing that IEBC deployed technology in accordance with the law.
“No credible evidence was provided that anyone accessed the RTS to intercept, detain or store Forms 34A before they were uploaded to the public portal. The allegations that 11,000 forms 34A were affected by staging was not proved,” Koome stated.
Chief Justice Martha Koome confers with Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu during the hearing of the Presidential Petition PHOTO/Zakheem Rajan
The Supreme Court also noted that the Forms 34A uploaded to the IEBC portal and those presented to the National Tallying Center were the same.
“There was no significant difference between the forms 34A posted to the public portal, those presented to the National Tallying Center, and those provided to agents in various polling stations across the country; affidavits were sensational,” Koome added.
Also, the Court finds that there is no evidence that the postponement of the election in Mombasa, Kakamega, Rongai, and five other areas across the country caused voter suppression.
On the verification, tallying, and declaration of results, the Supreme Court found that the IEBC conducted the same in accordance with the provided constitutional law.
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The 4 commissioners who distanced themselves from the final results were present and active in the tallying and the election cannot be nullified without evidence.
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