A decision by Kenya’s Supreme Court to annul the results of last month’s presidential election was hailed Friday by analysts as “historic” and “an example for the rest of the world”.
However, they warned that the 60 days within which a new election must be held will bring tension and anxiety, and the restraint of leaders and credibility of the new election will be paramount.
On Friday, Kenya’s Supreme Court rendered a shock ruling cancelling the results of the August 8 election over widespread irregularities.
Chief Justice David Maraga said a majority decision by the panel of six judges, with two dissenting, found that President Uhuru Kenyatta “was not validly elected”, rendering the result “invalid, null and void”.
ELECTRONIC RESULTS
Veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga and his National Super Alliance (Nasa) had taken the case to court, claiming the system transmitting votes had been hacked, and that forms from polling stations that were meant to back up the electronic results were not being uploaded.
“It is a historic decision, the first of its kind in Africa,” Murithi Mutiga, a Nairobi-based senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said.
Mr Mutiga said the ruling “means Kenya, one of the most open societies in Africa, is gradually maturing as a democracy”.
The “opposition can now go to court and expect to be served with justice”, he added.
According to Nic Cheeseman, a professor in African politics at the University of Birmingham, many observers expected a “conservative” ruling — similar to the decision in 2013 where Odinga took his grievances to court but eventually lost.
JUDICIARY
In a statement, Justus Nyang’aya, country director for Amnesty International Kenya, said the decision “demonstrates the independence of Kenya’s judiciary and sets an example for the rest of the world”.
But while the ruling “upholds the constitution” adopted in 2010, “it will put a lot of question marks on the international observers, who have massively said the election day went well,” an African diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
In the majority decision, Justice Maraga said the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) had been responsible for “irregularities and illegalities” which “affected the integrity of the election”.
But until the court’s full ruling is released, it is unclear what the judgement is based on.
“They’ve made one of the most important decisions in Kenyan history,” Mr Cheeseman said, “and it’s going to be 21 days before we find out why”.
Analysts bemoaned the wait, adding that the court’s final statement will likely influence the next vote and the people who will be in charge of carrying it out.
GRIEVANCES
“The reason why this election was not well run was because the IEBC had so little time to run it,” Mr Cheeseman said, noting that new election commissioners were named a mere seven months before the August poll.
“And so now you have less time”.
For his part, the anonymous African diplomat said Kenya could see a rush of other dissatisfied candidates who lost out in governor, senator or MP races turn to the court with election grievances following the ruling.
“A lot of people will be nervous,” Cheeseman said. “Kenya just had a difficult and controversial election, and this decision pushes it right back into another electoral campaign, which will start almost immediately”.
“The outcome of the next election may be controversial again”.
REACTION
This is why “the reaction of the political leaders will be extremely critical in the next two months,” Mr Mutiga said.
“There will be anxiety, there will be uncertainty, but political leaders need to show some maturity and make sure that they don’t ruin what in my view is a remarkably important step for Kenya’s democracy”.
Mr Mutiga added however that “restraint will be difficult in this very polarised environment” — which was also stark before, during and after the August vote due to deep ethnic, economic and political divisions in Kenya.
On Friday, Amnesty International urged “all parties to comply with the judgement,” calling “on the police to observe restraint in their handling of any celebrations or protests” that may follow.
The August 11 declaration of Mr Kenyatta’s victory with 54.27 per cent of the vote — with not all the tallying forms in — sparked two days of protests in the slums of Nairobi and Kisumu, traditional opposition strongholds.
Source link-https://nation.africa/kenya
Kenya faces tricky path after ‘historic’ ruling—Analysts
NASA 21 STEPS TO INVALIDATE POLL AND ENTER FAKE CANAAN
EUREKA! WE FOUND IT. HERE IS WHAT NASA DID TO INVALIDATE ELECTIONS:
1. NASA knew they do not have votes to beat Jubilee but they have the mischief. They had no Tyranny of numbers but they could muster the tyranny of lies, mischief and propaganda. They wanted to get the ballot printing tender so they could get extra ballots and extra forms 34 A, B and C for false result claims in their strongholds
2. When they failed to get the tender, they went to court and insisted that the constituency should be the point of final results declaration. The judgement was thus granted
3. NASA knew they had no votes to beat Jubilee but they could spoil the polls
4. At the polling stations they could not bring fake forms because there was more scrutiny
5. So they printed fake forms 34Bs distributed to as many NASA-friendly Constituency returning officers in NASA STRONGHOLDS like Joho’s Mombasa county and Luoland. At the constituency level Jubilee agents in NASA strongholds were either absent, not keen to note fake Form 34 Bs being introduced or they were knowingly being NASA moles pretending to be Jubilee agents
6. The returning officers who were pro-NASA deliberately used the wrong forms 34B to collate the results from polling stations. They also deliberately entered as many errors as they could.
7. The voting was done okay in most polling stations and the results transmitted directly to the National Tallying Center and Constituency tallying centers.
8. IEBC had initially said they would not stream provisional results as per the court rulings. But under pressure and to avoid allegations of cooking results for being silent, they promised to show streaming results as updated every 3 hours.
9. That did not allow enough time for form 34Bs to come in so IEBC could scrutinize them and notice that in NASA strongholds, fake Forms 34Bs had been introduced.
10. In the meantime, NASA started or rather continued making noise about IEBC and how results were coming in when it was obvious that Jubilee was winning
11. NASA agents some of them overseas tried to hack into the IEBC servers. NASA also had moles within IEBC IT department where they deliberately interfered with the servers and data to create false evidence of results manipulation.
12. Observers and everybody noticed and agreed that things had gone well at polling stations. But at Constituency Tallying Centers there was less observers to note what in NASA strongholds was going on with form 34Bs. At Constituency and County level also, Jubilee candidates agents focused on MP, MCA, Senator and Governor results tallying and those were correct as announced.
13. The results continued coming to IEBC and IEBC was under pressure to finish up the collation of Forms 34 Bs to generate Forms 34 C. Remember as per Court orders IEBC Chebukati was denied power to change anything coming from Constituency Tallying Centers
14. IEBC and Chebukati did the right thing and correctly tallied the submitted results, then announced the winner legally and correctly.
15. NASA made noise as expected. Then pretended they would not go to court to fool Jubilee into relaxation while NASA agents and lawyers worked 24/7 to gather the many fake forms their agents (as Returning Officers) had knowing submitted to IEBC
16. NASA has over the years quietly taken over the judiciary using their friendly judges and many clerical moles. They also managed to push many of their sympathizer judges to enter the Supreme Court after three positions became vacant.
17. After results were announced and widely accepted NASA tried the violence card but it failed to catch on. The “peoples’ court” was touted but soon fizzled out.
18. They tried to use the foot soldiers (NGOS like Africog) to go to court but the move was thwarted.
19. Then in a last-minute surprise move NASA went to court filed the petition and piled external pressure on the judges to believe the fabricated allegations and false evidence and “this time around” redeem the supreme court image
20. Jubilee and IEBC lawyers did a gallant job as admitted by even Justice Ojwang. But lazy computer illiterate, false religious David Maraga along-side Kalonzo leaning Philomena Muilu, Wetangula and Mudavadi leaning Smokin Wanjala and one erratic self-impressing judge Leanola accepted the NASA lawyers’ propaganda and without an iota of evidence or sound legal reasoning and realistic and patriotic consideration of country THE INEPT JUDGES INVALIDATED THE OTHERWISE CREDIBLE ELECTIONS in a move that surprised millions and threw Kenya into turmoil.
21. Now NASA is working mischievously harder to create a constitutional crisis and force NUSU mkate fake Canaan. If Jubilee and IEBC and every Jubilee supporters doesn’t watch out and speak out, the repeat elections will be spoilt by NASA to create another claim of illegitimacy and throw the country into turmoil until mkate nusu comes through. IEBC please ensure no fake FORMs 34 Bs are submitted from NASA strongholds again!
Anonymous