The 7 bench judges of the Supreme Court of Kenya led by CJ Martha Koome have upheld Ruto’s victory.
The case was filed on 29th August after IEBC declared William Ruto as the winner of the Presidential seat in the August polls on August 15.
The nine petitions the Supreme Court was to look into included;
- Whether the technology deployed by the IEBC for the conduct of the 2022 general elections met the standards of integrity, verifiability, security and transparency to guarantee accurate and verifiable results-The court was not persuaded that the technology failed the standard
- Whether there was interference with the uploading and transmission of Forms 34A from the polling stations to the IEBC Public Portal-Not ready evidence to prove that anyone intercepted the forms, forms on the public portal were the same as hard copy forms from polling stations, if adding and subtraction of votes was there that led to different form 34As-scrutiny was done in 41 polling stations found out no significance difference.
- Whether there was a difference between Forms 34A uploaded on the IEBC Public Portal and Forms 34A received at the National Tallying Centre and Forms 34A issued to the Agents at the Polling Stations- no credible evidence produced since the registrar of the court confirmed the authenticity of the forms, none of the agents swore the affidavit of different forms.
- Whether the postponement of Gubernatorial Elections in Kakamega and Mombasa Counties, Parliamentary elections in Kitui Rural, Kacheliba Rongai and Pokot South Constituencies and electoral wards in Nyaki West in North Imenti Constituency and Kwa Njenga in Embakasi South Constituency resulted in voter suppression to the detriment of the Petitioners in Petition No. E005 of 2022- claim was undoubtedly mere hearing therefore postponement didn’t lead to voter suppression.
- Whether there were unexplainable discrepancies between the votes cast for presidential candidates and other elective positions-no single document was presented to show this it is a criminal offence and must be proved. No voter discrepancies.
- Whether the IEBC carried out the verification, tallying, and declaration of results in accordance with Article 138 (3) (c) and 138 (10) of the Constitution-power to do above is not vest in chairperson but the commission, the chairperson can’t allocate himself powers to do the above but the four commissioners too participated and haven’t explained why the elections they participated in was opaque. IEBC carried out the verification, tallying ad declaration of results in accordance of the Constitution.
- Whether the declared President-elect attained 50%+1 vote of all the votes cast in accordance with Article 138 (4) of the Constitution-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.The court has found out that the declared president-elect attained 50 percent plus one of the total votes cast in accordance with Article 138 (4) of the constitution.
- Whether there were irregularities and illegalities of such magnitude as to affect the final result of the Presidential Election
- What reliefs and orders can the Court grant/issue. The court has unanimously dismissed the petition and each party will bear the costs.
Two petitions were struck out and they were former Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria’s and William Ruto’s, which sought to bar LSK from participating in the petition.
The petitioners were; Raila Odinga and Martha Karua.
Other petitioners include; John Njoroge Kamau, Youth Advocacy Africa, Khelef Khalifa, George Osewe with Ruth Mumbi and Grace Kamau, Okiya Omutatah with Nyakina Gisebe, Victor Okuna and John Maina , Julia Chege with Joseph Ndonga and Simon Njenga.
William Ruto and Rigathi Gachagua were first and second respondents respectively.
The IEBC was the 3rd respondent, Wafula Chebukati 4th and Juliana Cherera 5th.
The 6th respondent was Irene Massit, Julius Nyang’aya 7th, Francis Wanderi 8th, Ayub Guliye 9th, Boya Molu 10th and the Attorney General 11th.
Ruto will be sworn in on 13th September.