Both the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections were challenged at the Supreme Court by Raila Odinga who came second in both instances.
While the 2013 presidential petition was thrown out, a repeat presidential election was ordered in 2017 which Raila Odinga boycotted hence President Uhuru strolled to victory.
In an attempt to make this years election as transparent as possible, electoral body IEBC made it possible for any Kenyan to access presidential election data and even tally the same.
Many have thus said this year’s presidential election has hit new highs as far as transparency is concerned and there will be no claims of elections results manipulation from losers.
Lawyer Ahmednasir, a senior counsel who represented President Uhuru in the 2013 presidential petition, has suggested that this year’s presidential election has been too transparent to be challenged.
Taking to his Twitter, the outspoken lawyer who has supported William Ruto’s presidential bid since, said the electoral body had conducted a very credible and transparent presidential election for anyone to challenge in court.
“I don’t think the losing candidates in the just concluded Presidential contest will challenge the result in the Supreme Court…Chairman Chebukati and his Commissioners at IEBC has done a good job,” said Ahmednasir.
He called upon Kenyans to congratulate IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati and his fellow commissioners even as they wait for the release of the winner of the presidential election.
Unlike the previous two presidential elections under the current constitution promulgated in 2010, the electoral body IEBC opted to ensure everyone can access and download form 34A from its portal as sent by the presiding officers across the country’s about 46,000 polling stations.
Form 34A bears results of presidential candidates from polling stations and they were to be sent to IEBC public portal in as a photo to avoid cases of result manipulations.
This made it easy for media houses as well as independent entities to download the same and make their own tallies without having to rely on periodic updates from IEBC like before.
It thus remains to be seen if any of the two leading presidential candidates –Raila Odinga and William Ruto– will opt to file a presidential petition in case they don’t win in this election.
