The Supreme Court has dismissed former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s petition that sought to invalidate the election of William Ruto as the fifth President.
In his petition filed on Monday, September 22, the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition party had claimed that William Ruto did not achieve the 50 percent plus one vote threshold required by the Constitution to be declared the president.
However, in the ruling delivered on Monday, September 5, read by Supreme Court President Martha Koome, the UDA presidential candidate met all the Constitutional thresholds among them the 50 percent plus one vote.
“The presidential election number E005 of 2022 as consolidated with presidential election petition numbers E001, 2,3,4 7, and 8 of 2022 is hereby dismissed,
“As a consequence, we declare the election of the first respondent as president-elect to be valid under Article143 of the constitution,” Koome stated.
While arriving at their conclusion, the apex court judges retaliated past the ruling that spoilt votes can’t be used in the computation of the 50+1 threshold.
“Rejected votes cannot be taken into account when calculating whether a presidential candidate attained 50%+1 of the votes cast in accordance with Article 138 (4) of the constitution,” CJ Koome added.
The Court further found that all the IEBC commissioners were involved in the tallying and verification of presidential results before they matched out in protest after realizing that they were not in favor of their candidate.
“We take cognizance of the fact that the fourth, fifth sixth and seventh respondents actively participated in the verification and tallying exercise from the beginning until just before the declaration of results to nullify an election,” stated the Chief Justice.
The ruling however did not come as a shock as a section of leaders allied to the former Prime Minister had in the morning hours of Monday, September 5, taken to social media to concede defeat.