ANNULLED ELECTIONS

Sep 03, 2017 Editorial, Features / Columnists

It is highly unusual for courts to annul elections, but it has happened in Kenya where the Supreme Court declared that country’s presidential elections held on August 8, 2017, null and void.
The election results sparked days of sporadic protests which claimed the lives of 28 people and had raised fears of a major outbreak of political violence in the country. However, citing irregularities and illegalities committed by the election commission, Kenya’s Supreme Court ordered a new election within 60 days.
In annulling the election, Chief Justice David Maraga said “the greatness of a nation lies in its fidelity to the constitution and the strict adherence to the rule of law.”
According to the Chief Justice, an election is not an event; it is a process from the beginning to the end and taking the totality of the entire exercise into consideration, the Court was convinced that the election commission had failed to conduct the presidential elections in a manner consistent with the principles laid out in the Kenyan constitution and the law relating to elections. It was a majority decision which made it the first time ever that a court has overturned an election not only in Kenya, but in all of Africa.
In upholding the petition filed by the opposition leader Raila Odinga, the Chief Justice said that the electoral commission did not follow the constitution in conducting the presidential elections and it has failed to validate the ballot papers and verify the elector forms submitted by the returning officers at each polling station.
The ruling by the Supreme Court makes Kenya the first African country where an opposition political party has challenged the election results in a court of law and won. Other elections on the continent have been annulled or cancelled before, but this appears to be the first time that it was done through the courts.
The historic decision is a huge victory for Odinga who feels vindicated against accusations by many, including President Uhuru Kenyatta, that he was a sore loser. The ruling marked an historic day for democracy and the people of Kenya. It was an indictment of the electoral commission which had declared incumbent President Kenyatta the winner of last month’s election by a margin of 1.4 million votes.
The Supreme Court’s ruling was also a major setback for some local observers and most of the international observers from the European Union, the African Union, the Carter Center and the United States delegation which was headed by the former secretary of State, John Kerry, who claimed that the election was free, fair and credible, and that there had been no major fraud on Election Day.
The international observers had also urged the leader of the opposition to concede, but Odinga had adamantly refused and claimed that he had no faith at all in the electoral commission as currently constituted, because its computer system had been hacked to manipulate the results of the election in favour of the governing party.
However, the ruling of the Supreme Court is final, which means that Kenyatta will not be sworn in as President of Kenya for the second time, but would serve as interim president until the next election.
The decision to annul the election sets up a new race for the presidency of Kenya between Kenyatta and Odinga, who contested the last three elections and lost each time. In the 2007 elections, Odinga claimed that the votes were rigged and this led to ethnic violence which claimed the lives of 1,100 persons. In the 2013 elections, the opposition leader took his grievances to the Supreme Court and lost.
However, this time, his focus was not to prove how the election was rigged, but that the process for tallying the votes and transmitting the results was flawed. It was a rare victory for the veteran politician, who praised the Court’s decision, while his opponent criticized it. The judges were hailed as heroes by many Kenyans who celebrated the victory in the streets of Nairobi.

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