The hearing of presidential petitions that seeks to nullify the declaration of William Ruto as the president-elect is currently underway at the Supreme Court of Kenya.
In his submissions to the court, the lawyer representing Raila Odinga and Martha Karua, James Orengo, addressed the issue of whether Ruto attained the 50%+1 vote threshold, which was listed as issue number 7 for determination by the Supreme Court.
According to him, Ruto did not achieve the threshold as dictated by the constitution.
“We want to persuade you that the second respondent never attained that constitutional threshold. Going back to the constitution on article 138 sub article 4, it was made part of the constitution by the framers of the constitution to give legitimacy to anybody elected as president to the effect that he had widespread support of the Kenyan people and that is evidenced by the requirement that the president elect must have 25% of votes in each of the more than half counties, ” Orengo told the 7-bench judge.
“Talking about numbers in the two provisions speaks to the need for accuracy and accountability to give an election the legitimacy that the whole of that office would carry while exercising the powers of the president of the Republic of Kenya,” he added.
To support his point, Orengo noted that the total number of voters who participated in the general elections remain indeterminate because IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati issued contradictory figures on the total number of voters who participated in the general elections.
According to him, on the election day, just an hour before the close of polling stations, Chebukati announced that the voter turnout was very low and was at an average of 52% of the total number of registered voters.
The following day at 1.00pm Chebukati told the public that the total voter turnout captured by KIEMs Kit was 65.4%Â which translated to 14, 466,779 voters and that the number was expected to rise once the total number of voters who had been identified manually was tallied.
However in form 34C, which Chebukati used to declare final results indicate that 14,213,137 voters turned out to vote on August 9 which is way below what was anticipated.
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