Odinga speaking to the press immediately after the Supreme Court delivered its verdict/MOSES MUOKI
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 1 – The Opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) leader Raila Odinga says the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court nullifying the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as President is historic, adding that justice has been done.
Speaking outside the court buildings following the ruling on Friday, Odinga stated that the will of the people has prevailed and expressed his elation on the ruling.
“It is a very historic day for the people of Kenya and by extension the people of the continent of Africa. For the first time in the history of African democratisation, a ruling has been made by a court nullifying irregular elections of a president. This is a precedent setting ruling which is very historical,” he said.
He thanked the Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice David Maraga for doing a good job during the hearing of the petition.
“I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Supreme Court judges led by the Chief Justice for doing this for the posterity of Kenyans. Ii would also like to thank our team of Kenyans who burnt the midnight oil tirelessly in order to prepare this case,” he stated.
“We said at the beginning that our journey to Canaan was unstoppable. On August 8th, we crossed the river Jordan and reached the city of Jericho, we are marching on to the city of Jerusalem and we shall get there,” he stated.
Odinga’s co-principal Kalonzo Musyoka who also spoke to journalists, following the ruling commended the judges for a job well done.
“As we thank justice Maraga and the majority including the minority, the fact that they were give the opportunity to read their dissenting judgment was commendable. You can see the openness within which these proceedings were conducted. I am happy to be a Kenyan today,” he stated.
The Supreme Court ordered the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to conduct a fresh presidential election within 60 days after finding that the August 8 poll was not conducted in keeping with the principles of the Constitution and election law.
A majority of the seven-judge bench with the exception of Justices Njoki Ndung’u and Jackton Ojwang found that presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Kalonzo Musyoka had indeed proved their case that the integrity of the August 8 presidential election was compromised by irregularities and illegalities.
While the bench stated right off that it would not be able to deliver a full judgement given the tight time constraints imposed on them by the constitution, Chief Justice David Maraga did give an indication for their reasoning by stating that, “An election is not an event, we took into consideration the entire exercise.”
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and President Uhuru Kenyatta had argued that while there were errors, there were minute and to be expected and said any failures of the electronic results transmission system were not enough to invalidate the result especially given the clean bill of health given to the ballot casting and counting exercise by a raft of observers.
It was these same reasons that Justices Ndung’u and Ojwang gave for their dissenting opinions.
The petitioners had contended that the IEBC’s electronic transmission systems had been breached with the intruder ‘rigging’ it with a mathematical formula intended to give President Kenyatta a constant 54 per cent majority.
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