Kenya awaits Supreme Court ruling on poll petition

Kenyans are nervously waiting for the ruling of the country’s supreme court to find out the result of last month’s presidential election.

Deputy President William Ruto was declared winner after scraping to victory by less than two percentage points against his opponent, Raila Odinga who is now challenging the result.

Kenya’s Supreme Court said it had identified nine issues to determine the outcome of petitions challenging the result of the August 9 presidential election, including whether any irregularities were substantial enough to nullify the poll.

But unlike some previous elections the situation has remained peaceful.

Moses Mungai is a florist and Raila Odinga supporter who thinks it will remain calm.

“I think as a country we have grown because by now, if we were supposed to have skirmishes, they would be there already, but I think we won’t have any. As a country, we have grown,” he says.

Odinga, who lost his fifth bid for the presidency, rejected the outcome of the August 9 poll and filed a petition at the top court alleging fraud in the vote tallying process.

Among the questions being considered by the Court is whether the election commission website was hacked and if there was any interference with the transmission of result forms.

The Court says it is attempting to answer nine questions and if the result is nullified it could lead to fresh elections, which worries many voters including Peter Kibacia who works at a fruit and vegetable stand in Nairobi.

“It would be very bad, surely,” he says. “Because for now, it’s hard. Can you imagine, then another one? It’s very hard, the economy would be brought down.”

The top court also ruled that the votes cast in at least 14 out of around 46,000 polling stations be inspected, scrutinised and recounted.

No election in the past twenty years has gone unchallenged and both Odinga and Ruto have put together huge legal team to argue their point.