Kenya’s Supreme Court has ruled that William Ruto was properly elected president, dismissing several petitions seeking to annul the result of the 9 August election.
His rival, Raila Odinga, and others had alleged there had been massive fraud.
But in a ruling, the judges said some of the petitioners had falsified evidence.
Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga who was the main petitioner in court challenging the result of the 2022 presidential elections said he respects Monday’s apex court’s ruling to uphold William Ruto’s win even though he does not agree with its findings.
The 77-year-old veteran opposition leader who was making his fifth presidential bid, however, said the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court’s seven-judge bench is by no means the end of their movement while inspiring them to redouble their efforts to transform the east African nation into a prosperous democracy.
“We have always stood for the rule of law and the constitution in this regard, we respect the opinion of the court although we vehemently disagree with their decision today,” Odinga said in a statement issued in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
PERSONAL POLITICS
The history between Odinga, Ruto and outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta underscores the tangled ties between elite families and the primacy of personality over politics.
Ruto was Kenyatta’s vice president, but the two fell out and Kenyatta backed Odinga in the vote.
In a speech after the judgment, Ruto poked gentle fun at his predecessor and former ally, saying: “I’ve not yet spoken to my … friend Uhuru Kenyatta.” He also thanked the Kenyan people and pledged to serve.
Thank you the people of Kenya for trusting us with the leadership of our nation. The Kenya Kwanza team is ready to serve all equally. pic.twitter.com/uZmkENMBR2
— William Samoei Ruto, PhD (@WilliamsRuto) September 5, 2022
History
In 1963, when Kenya gained independence from British colonial rule, Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Odinga became president and vice president respectively of the nascent country. Their party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), was mainly full of Kikuyu and Luo elements, the tribes the two men came from.
The two fell out over ideological differences and Jaramogi Odinga resigned from office in April 1966. The bile that followed was of spectacular proportions and eventually moved from an individual level to a communal one.
By December that year, when Ruto was born in Kamagut near Eldoret in the Rift Valley, Kenyatta’s Kikuyus and Odinga’s Luos, two of the country’s largest ethnic groups, were barely seeing eye to eye.
Over the years, those tensions marinated the sociopolitical landscape, intermittently manifesting in dangerous dimensions, especially as Kikuyus have accounted for three of the country’s four presidents.
The exception was Daniel Arap Moi, an ethnic Kalenjin like Ruto who has gone from being a village boy tending to his family’s cattle in rural Kenya to the presidency.
Election Petition
For the third time in his career, Kenya’s main opposition leader Raila Odinga is challenging presidential election results at the country’s Supreme Court.
The quest for electoral fairness in Kenya started three decades ago, following the country’s first multiparty presidential election in 1992.
The late Kenneth Matiba and Mwai Kibaki challenged the elections of President Daniel Moi in 1992 and 1997.
After upholding the election of Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013, the Kenyan Supreme Court made history in 2017 by being the first court in Africa to nullify the election of a sitting president, after Odinga filed a petition in that case.
The court cited election irregularities and ordered a new vote, which had been won by incumbent President Kenyatta.