Previous 12 / 28 Next

1. Constitution of Kenya, 2010 articles 86;101; 136(2)(a); 138(3)(c)(4)(a)(10); 140(1)(3); 163(3)(a); 177(1); 180(1) - (Interpreted) 2. Election Oences Act, 2016 (Act No 37 of 2016) section 5(n) - (Interpreted) 3. Elections (Technology) Regulations, 2017 (Act No 24 of 2011 Sub Leg) regulations 11, 12 (Interpreted) 4. Elections Act, 2011 (Act No 24 of 2011) sections 6A, 44, 55B - (Interpreted) 5. Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Act, 2011 (Act No 9 of 2011) section 11A (a) (Interpreted) 6. Penal Code (cap 63) sections 113, 114 - (Interpreted) 7. Supreme Court (Presidential Election Petition) Rules, 2017 (Act No 7 of 2011 Sub Leg) rule 23(1) - (Interpreted) 8. Supreme Court Act, 2011 (Act No 7 of 2011) section 12 - (Interpreted) Advocates None mentioned JUDGMENT (Pursuant to rule 23(1) of the Supreme Court (Presidential Election Petition) Rules, 2017) The Presidential Election of 9th August 2022 A. Introduction This Judgment is rendered pursuant to rule 23(1) of the Supreme Court (Presidential Election Petition) Rules, 2017. [1] Kenya is a sovereign multi-party democratic state whose foundations are rmly spelt in the Constitution. The Kenyan people’s quest for electoral reforms since independence is well documented. That notwithstanding and even without going back to the pre-1992 era, every cycle of elections has been highly contested with the exception of 2002. This speaks to a background of distrust of the administration of our electoral process. Informed by this setting, Kenyans made a decision to vest the Supreme Court with the jurisdiction to determine questions regarding the validity of a Presidential Election under article 140 of the Constitution. The reactions following the declaration of results of the Presidential Election of August 9, 2022 shows that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has not yet garnered universal public condence and trust in the internal management of the Commission and elections. On August 15, 2022, six days after the General Elections were held, Mr Wafula Chebukati, the Chairperson of IEBC announced the following results: Candidates Votes Percentage Raila Odinga 6,942,930 48.85 William Ruto 7,176,141 50.49 David Waihiga 31,987 0.23 George Wajackoyah 61,969 0.44 kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/240578/ 12

Select target paragraph3

● ● ●

Odinga, et. al v. Ruto

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether petitioners’ evidence of interference and election fraud satisfied the appropriate level of evidence as required by the Court and affected the election result, warranting the cancellation and rerun of the election?

Alleged Acts: Kenya’s former prime minister, Raila Odinga, accused President-Elect William Ruto, who beat Odinga in the country’s 2022 national election, of vote tampering, ballot stuffing, and fraudulently interfering with the election.

Procedural history: Seven days after the results of the election were announced, the petitioners filed this suit directly to the Supreme Court of Kenya, which has direct authority to hear cases concerning national electoral matters.

Summary: At the conclusion of the 2022 Kenyan national elections, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) of Kenya declared Respondent William Ruto the winner of the presidency by less than 2 percent of the total vote. However, several days after the election, petitioner Raila Odinga, the country’s former prime minister and Ruto’s opponent, sued the IEBC for being nontransparent and biased towards the respondent and alleged voter fraud and ballot stuffing by the respondent and his supporters. Based on these arguments, petitioner sought to have the election nullified. Odinga and sixteen other petitioners – all supporters of Odinga, including his running mate – challenged the results and argued that the technology used by the IEBC “fell short of the prescribed constitutional and statutory standards” of Kenya. They also alleged that certain ballot station workers intercepted, detained, or stored ballot forms to tamper with the election process. The IEBC denied the assertions but admitted there was “confusion with the printed ballot papers” and that they had discovered a “mix-up on the eve of the election[.]” Based on this, the petitioners argued that there may have been sufficient levels of vote tampering and voting irregularities to cast the election into doubt.

Conclusion: The court categorically denied every petition filed by the petitioners, holding that they did not satisfy the appropriate level of evidence for their numerous claims and that allegations of irregularity – real or otherwise – must be significant enough to have affected the final result of the election. While the Court affirmed its commitment to hearing all allegations of fraud and election malfeasance, it found no widespread evidence of interference in this case. Specifically, the Court determined that the petitioners presented no credible evidence that the IEBC or a third party fraudulently altered ballots or illegally accessed or altered electronic voting system data, writing, “[n]ot a single document had been presented by the 1st petitioner to prove systematic ballot stuffing.” The Court also held that the petitioners submitted video logs that were either from a previous election in 2017 or were “outright forgeries.” Further, the Court affirmed that even if there had been small, isolated incidents of interference, the evidence did not show that such interference altered the outcome of the election. The Court held that such issues should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, but the level of fraud present in this election did not mandate a nullification of the results.

Legal Issue(s)

Civil Procedure
Disputing Results
Electoral Administration Irregularities
Electoral Integrity
Electronic Voting
EMB Operation

Applicable Law(s): Constitution of Kenya, 2010, articles 101, 136(2)(a), 177(1) and 180(1); Elections Act, section 55B Election Offences Act, No. 37 of 2016

Region: Africa

Country: Kenya

Language of Decision

English

Court: Supreme Court

Election Type: General

Date of decision: Sep 5, 2022

Geolocation

Latitude: -1.3383790223516616

Longitude: 36.83349564671517

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

Odinga, et al. v. Ruto CASE.pdf
English
Download View

Election Judgments - IFES

Select target paragraph3

Odinga, et. al v. Ruto

Primary Documents

Notifications