Raila Odinga loses case to nullify Ruto’s election victory

Kenya’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld the election of William Ruto as the country’s president-elect in a ruling that sharply rejected arguments made by opposition candidate Raila Odinga and his supporters, who had sought to overturn the results.

The verdict likely marks a final blow to the presidential ambitions of Odinga, a 77-year-old veteran opposition leader who was on his fifth bid for Kenya’s presidency.

Odinga and his legal team had contested Ruto’s Aug. 9 victory on a variety of grounds, including that result sheets in polling stations were altered, that the election commission chair, Wafula Chebukati, allowed the electronic voting system to be infiltrated and that he overstepped his authority by announcing the results without the consensus of the commission.

The Supreme Court unanimously found there was little or no evidence to back up the claims.

Chebukati had worked closely with his fellow commissioners to conduct a transparent process, the court found, until the four commissioners announced minutes before Chebukati read the results they could not support the results because of the “opaque” nature of the process.

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“Are we to nullify an election on the basis of a last-minute board room rupture, the details of which remain scanty and contradictory?” said Martha Koome, the court’s chief justice.

Koome also criticized Kenya’s election body for its dysfunctionality, saying the commission needs “far-reaching reforms.”

Although this election has generally been peaceful, some feared that a ruling against Odinga could trigger unrest among his supporters, since the campaign was largely viewed as his last shot at the presidency. The deadliest election cycle in Kenya was in 2007 where Odinga lost to then-President Mwai Kibaki. Post-election violence left more than 1,000 dead and 600,000 displaced.

Kenyan President-elect William Ruto’s legal team celebrates the outcome on the day of the ruling on a petition seeking to invalidate the outcome of the recent presidential election, at the Supreme Court in Nairobi Sept. 5.

This year, there was more skepticism about some of the claims leveled by Odinga’s team, including allegations of vote rigging by Venezuelans, with many noting that the election had been heralded as Kenya’s most transparent and that independent observers said the official results were in line with their own.

Ahead of the ruling, Kenyan police heightened security in parts of the country with histories of post-election violence. In Nairobi on Monday, some schools announced they would be closing early.

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