William Ruto, who was declared winner of Kenya’s presidential election in August, has been declared the president-elect by the Kenyan Supreme Court.

The president-elect had earlier vowed to respect the Supreme Court’s decision before it was delivered on Monday confirming or invalidating the results of the vote, disputed by his rival Raila Odinga.

While upholding the election of Ruto as President, the he supreme Court ruled that none of the allegations against the outcome of the presidential results was supported by evidence that proved the petitioner’s case beyond reasonable doubt.

The verdict marks a big blow to the presidential ambitions of Odinga, a 77-year-old veteran opposition leader, and means that Ruto, 55, the country’s populist deputy president, will in coming weeks be sworn-in as the next President of Kenya.

The Chief Justice Martha Koome, in the ruling lambasted allegations made by Odinga’s legal team as “just another red herring” and “hearsay.”

Odinga, who was on his fifth bid for the presidency, had personally delivered boxes of evidence to the court following Ruto’s narrow victory in the August 9 election.

In a statement Monday afternoon, Odinga said he found it “incredible” that judges had ruled against his petition on each of the nine counts raised, using language he described as “unduly exaggerated.”

“We respect the opinion of the court although we vehemently disagree with their decision today,” said Odinga, “This judgment is by no means the end of our movement.”

Ruto, for his part, applauded the judgment, praising the independent election commission and its chair, and describing the judiciary as “the hero for our democracy and the rule of law and constitutionalism.”

“The administration that we are going to run is the administration that is going to serve all Kenyans,” Ruto said.

“Irrespective of whether they voted at all, or whoever they voted for.”

The election, which pitted two of Kenya’s most powerful politicians against each other, had been closely contested, with the chair of the independent election body announcing August 15 that Ruto — who pitched himself as a “hustler” who would best represent Kenya’s poor — had won about 50.5 percent of the vote, compared with Odinga’s 48.5 percent.

Minutes before Wafula Chebukati, the committee chair, read the results, four of the seven members declared they could not stand by the results because of the “opaque nature” of the process.

Odinga’s legal team argued that Chebukati had allowed the electronic voting system to be infiltrated by foreign agents and that he had overstepped his authority by announcing results without the consensus of the commission.

Koome said the court found “no credible evidence” of the first claim and determined that the four commissioners provided little proof for their claims and in fact participated in the process until the “11th hour.”

“Are we to nullify an election on the basis of a last-minute boardroom rupture, the details of which remain scanty and contradictory?” said Koome.

“This we cannot do.” Koome also criticized Kenya’s election body for its dysfunctionality, saying the commission needs “far-reaching reforms.”

But she said that the infighting had not affected the body’s ability to carry out the election according to the standards laid out by the constitution.

She dismissed claims made by Odinga’s team that there were significant differences between paper tallies at 46,229 polling stations and those uploaded to the online portal.

Odinga had served as a political prisoner in the 1980s and helped usher in Kenya’s multiparty system.

StreetReporters.ng

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