Details of petition challenging Uhuru's victory emerge
CJ David Maraga promised to annul a presidential election, "should it bear traces of irregularities and illegalities".
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A local daily, however, on Monday hinted at a high possibility of Mr Kenyatta’s victory being challenged at the apex court, not by anyone – in the sense of an aggrieved voter – but by a group of civil society organisations.
The weight of the matter - which will be before the seven judge bench for the second time in a year – may not be as was the case in the August 8 petition filed by them Nasa presidential candidate Mr Raila Odinga, as he ruled out the possibility of returning to the CJ David Maraga led team for resolve.
“The new suit will essentially bring to a halt the swearing-in preparations for Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto that was set for November 14,” the Star reported on Monday.
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Earlier when he spoke at the Bomas of Kenya while receiving his nomination certificate, Mr Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto contemplated that the Opposition “had various legal avenues to exhaust before engaging in talks” with Jubilee’s bigwigs.
The civil society groups, including Inuka Trust led by anti-graft crusader Mr John Githogo, the Katiba Insitute, associated with Prof Yash Pal Ghai, and Muslims for Human Rights (Muhuri) headed by Khelef Khalifa, have already been summoned by the Nongovernmental Organisation’s Board under unclear circumstances.
It is understood, however, that the lobby groups have thrown their weights behind a riveting petition to stop Uhuru Kenyatta’s swearing-in fete, which is slated for November 14.
On Wednesday last week, through a press conference, umbrella body Kura Yangu Sauti Yangu, questioned the aggregate numbers Mr Kenyatta got in the repeat polls, citing other discrepancies in figures in the poll that was skipped by Mr Odinga.
The lobby group argued that the IEBC voter register had changed four times since it was gazetted in June. During the August 8 polls, the Wafula Chebukati-led IEBC said there were a total of 19,637,061 registered voters. This changed to 19,611,366 in the October 26 vote.
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“The number of registered voters announced by Chebukati differed from the gazetted number of the Register of Voters, both at the national and county levels. In fact, Chebukati’s announced numbers match what is in the gazetted register in only 4 of the 48 counties,” the lobby had said.
It added that Mr Chebukati bungled up figures to award Mr Kenyatta his resounding victory of 98.2 per cent of the votes cast in the highly protracted exercise.
The team argued that Uhuru’s aggregate tally of votes from constituencies comes to 7,583,895 and not the 7,483,895 declared by the Commission, a difference of 100,000 votes.
The new petition, which comes amid criticism to the Apex court, yet proves another daunting exercise for Mr Kenyatta, even after he roughed up the Supreme Court judges, amid indications from Mr Maraga that should a petition of that nature be presented to him, he will rally the judges to nullify it.
“It [the judgment] ought to lead the IEBC to a soul-searching and to go back to the drawing board. If not, this Court, whenever called upon to adjudicate on a similar dispute will reach the same decision if the anomalies remain the same, irrespective of who the aspirants may be,” Maraga warned during hi historic ruling at the Supreme Court.
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Critics claim the civil society organisations heading to court are associates of opposition chief Raila Odinga, but Pulse Live Kenya could not independently verify this.
Meanwhile, Mr Odinga addressing a press conference on Monday last week, instead vowed to form the resistance movement and the People’s Assembly to instead bring electoral justice, in a bid to call for fresh elections in 90 days.
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