Presidential aspirant Raila Odinga is heading to the Supreme Court of Kenya to challenge the presidential results announced by the IEBC chair Wafula Chebukati.
Speaking at KICC on Tuesday, Raila said he will exploit all available legal options to shoot down the results announced on Monday.
He faulted Chebukati for bullying his way to announcing the results without seeking the input of IEBC commissioners.
The Azimio la Umoja presidential candidate says IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati’s declaration of William Ruto as president-elect is null and void. Raila said that Chebukati has no absolute power over other commissioners.
He said the IEBC chair’s actions are dictatorial, claiming he could have led the court to violence.
“He could have plunged the country into chaos. Such impunity can be a threat to security. It is not up to us to determine whether Chebukati has committed illegality,” he said.
“Four protested the action… Commissioners walked out. Figures announced by Chebukati are null and void and must be quashed by a court of law.”
On Monday, Chebukati announced Ruto the winner after he garnered 7,176,141 votes, against his close rival Raila who received 6,942,930 votes which is 48.85 per cent of the vote.
Of the 47 counties, Ruto garnered more than 25 per cent of the votes cast in 39, exceeding the minimum 24 counties required by the Constitution. Raila achieved 25 per cent of the votes cast in 34 counties.
Chebukati has since gazetted Ruto as the president-elect following the results.
“Let no one take the law into their own hands. We are pursuing constitutional and lawful channels to invalidate Chebukati’s illegal and unconstitutional pronouncement. We are certain that justice will prevail,” Raila said.
Why we rejected presidential results – IEBC commissioners
Meanwhile, The four IEBC commissioners who rejected Monday’s presidential results have given reasons behind their decision.
In a press statement read by chairperson Juliana Cherera on Tuesday at Serena Hotel, the commissioners said the aggregation of the percentages of the results were a mathematical absurdity that defy logic.
They said that the summation of percentages of votes awarded to each to each of the four presidential candidates exceeded 100 per cent.
“This summation gives us a total of 100.01 per cent. This translates to approximately 142,000 votes which will make a significant difference in the final results,” Cherera said.
In the results, President-elect William Ruto got 7,176,141 votes representing 50.49 per cent of the final vote while Raila Odinga got 6,942,930 translating to 48.85 per cent.
George Wajackoya got o.44 per cent of the vote while David Waihiga got 0.27 per cent .
“When we demanded that we verify the results, the chairman refused and insisted on declaring and announcing the results,” she added.
However, 0.01 per cent of the total votes cast translates to around 1,400 votes.
The commissioners further said the refused to take ownership of the results because the results declare the number of total registered voters, votes cast and the number of rejected votes.
This, they said was against the Constitution and the law.
“Unless demonstrated otherwise, we all know that the percentage represents a fraction of a whole number. For instance the 7.17 million valid votes cast in favour of the winning candidate translated to 50.49 per cent then it was 50.49 of what?” Cherera asked.
She was flanked by her fellow commissioners Irene Masit, Justus Nyangaya and Francis Wanderi.
They wondered how IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati said in the results that Raila attained 25 per cent of the vote in 34 counties while Ruto attained 25 per cent in 39 counties yet there are only 47 counties in the country.
“The question is which figures of the 34 and the 39 respectively constituted the independent variable to warrant the 25 per cent in 34 counties and 25 per cent in the 39 per cent for Raila and Ruto respectively,” Cherera said.
The officers said the above reasons informed their decision to denounce the results.
While citing the Maina Kiai case, the commissioners termed the results declared by Chebukati as null and void saying the court the case concluded that the law does not vest sweeping and boundless powers in the chairperson of the electoral body.
They said the law requires all the seven commissioners to approve the final results of a presidential election for it to be credible.
“This is his own results as opposed to IEBC,” Cherera said.
She added that they also rejected the results since the final tally was announced in the absence of results from certain constituencies.
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