NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 29 – Submissions in the petition filed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga concluded on Thursday evening after lawyers of both petitioners and respondents argued their cases.
The judges are now expected to issue a ruling on Saturday.
President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta was the last to make submissions before Odinga through Counsel Ochieng Oduol tendered his final response.
Through Senior Counsel Fred Ngatia, Kenyatta urged the court to help the country move forward after issuing a ruling on Saturday.
Ngatia insisted that the election was fair and conducted within the provisions of the constitution.
“We should now as a society inculcate the culture of accepting the will of the people. Democracy is not that one person must always win; it means that we must accept results,” he said.
“Elections are tiresome, obstructive; it is unfair for any candidate to want to insist that electoral processes have to be repeated,” the lawyer submitted.
“We have two competing interests; that of 12 million voters and that of one candidate but the will of the people should prevail,” Ngatia told the court.
He said that Odinga had failed to prove in the petition the margin of 1.5 million votes he claimed to have won over Kenyatta.
Attorney General Githu Muigai gave the Supreme Court questions to ponder while arriving to its ruling on the land mark petition.
Acting in his capacity as Amicus Curiae, Muigai told the judges that the nature of their ruling will have ramifications.
“The court has to determine if the election was conducted within the principles envisaged in the law. What the extent of non compliance and if there was substantial compliance with the Constitution and the law are issues to be considered,” the AG said.
He said that care must be given to the ambiguity of the term “fresh election” in the Constitution which he said had a serious “lacuna of inconsistencies and outright contradiction”.
He insisted that the petition did not seek to impeach the register that was certified but insisted that the uncertainty of the voters without biometrics is needed to be addressed.
Oduol called for expunging of the written submissions of Issack Hassan, the Chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) that sought to attack the person and character of Odinga.
The close of submissions was marred with exchanges between the lawyers after counsel Njoroge Regeru attempted to hurl barbs at Odinga prompting an objection from Oduol.
Chief justice Willy Mutunga and Justice Smokin Wanjala however, intervened to restore order.
Source:capitalfm.co.ke
