President-elect William Ruto defends win at Supreme Court
President-elect Dr William Ruto has referred to the petition challenging his win in the August 9, 2022 polls as fiction.
Through his lawyers led by Senior Counsel Fred Ngatia, Ruto said the petition filed by Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga lacks evidence to suggest the election was manipulated.
Dr Ruto further adds that Odinga is peddling a narrative by claiming unknown people in Nairobi intercepted results before they were uploaded on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commision (IEBC) portal.
Ngatia challenged Odinga and the other petitioners to table evidence of the alleged rigging.
“If that is true, from a point of logic, show us one of the Form 34 A in the public portal because that is where you admitted it landed, which differs from the one, the hard copy at the polling station. Show us only one, or show us a ballot box that people from outer space came and voted into,” Lawyer Ngatia said.
He continued: “And there is no such evidence, and why there is no such evidence is because that is the work of fiction. Work of fiction, not just conspiracy but work of fiction.”
Furthermore, Ngatia said that the prayer from the Azimio to nullify the presidential election would plunge the country into a constitutional crisis.
The orders sought in the primary petition, apart from being contradictory, would take this country to a constitutional crisis.”
He added that Mr Odinga had repeatedly said that he would not take part in the election presided over by IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati.
“The solution he (Mr Odinga) offers is, that there be an election presided over by the Vice Chairlady of IEBC…it would be a crisis of a monumental nature, a crisis that I do not think you would like to play with that kind of fire because it would be fire upon fire.”
He asked the court to dismiss Mr Odinga’s petition as well as other petitions before them.
IEBC vice chair Juliana Cherera is among the four commissioners who disagreed with the chairperson’s final results announcement and are part of the petitions seeking the court’s intervention.
The four have alleged that Mr Chebukati ran the affairs of the commission independently as a person, and were not involved even before the announcement of the final results.