Commentators now expect a petition to be filed at Kenya’s Supreme Court, following Raila Odinga’s public rejection of the presidential result.
They have until Monday – seven days after the election – to do so.
Odinga left leaving the press conference in Nairobi having strongly criticised the electoral commission chairman, accusing him of handling the polls like a dictator and a bully.
“Kenya faces a grave legal and political crisis as a result of the actions of Wafula Chebukati, the IEBC [election commission] chairman.
“What we saw yesterday was a travesty and a blatant disregard for the constitution and the laws of Kenya.”
“The figures announced by Mr Chebukati are null and void, and must be quashed by a court of law”, Raila Odinga continued
“Unless a unanimous decision is reached on any matter, the commission will be made by a majority of the members present”, he said quoting from legislation, suggesting that the four out of seven dissenting electoral commissioners should have had their objections upheld.
The vice-chairperson of Kenya’s election commission Juliana Cherera was one of the four commissioners who refused to endorse the results of the presidential results announced on Monday.
She claimed that if you added the percentages as announced by the chairperson of the commission, Wafula Chebukati, the sum came to 100.01%.
The claim needs to be tested and could be down to a rounding error, but Ms Cherera described this as a mathematic absurdity that defied logic.
She added that the results of the presidential elections did not reflect the opinion of the commissioners, because they had to process them before they were declared and they did not get to see all of them. – BBC.
