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Justice Philomena Mwilu Questions How Court Would Declare Winner if Election is Found to Be Unconstitutional

Justice Philomena Mwilu Questions How Court Would Declare Winner if Election is Found to Be Unconstitutional

Justice Philomena Mwilu Questions How Court Would Declare Winner if Election is Found to Be Unconstitutional

  • Justice Philomena Mwilu said petitioners in the presidential election petition had focused their submissions on a bungled electoral process
  • Consequently, she questioned how the Supreme Court is supposed to declare Raila Odinga the winner of an election whose process was impugned
  • Raila, in his pleadings, has asked the apex court to recount presidential votes and order IEBC to declare him the president-elect

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, August 31, began the formal hearing of the 2022 presidential election petition, where Raila Odinga  and other petitioners challenged William Ruto’s win.

Supreme Court
Philomena Mwilu and Martha Koome during presidential election petition hearing. Photo: The Judiciary Kenya.

Petitioner’s legal team made submissions supporting their case before the seven-judge bench during the opening day.

The majority of the petitioners called for the annulment of the presidential results on the ground that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission bungled the entire process.

“IEBC is dysfunctional and incapable of managing elections. IEBC wasn’t well constituted as commissioners were divided over the credibility of election results thus, Chebukati had no powers to declare Ruto,” James Orengo argued

Philomena Mwilu Asks Petitioners to Explain when IEBC Became Dysfunctional:”Kama Vindeo. Kama Drama “.

However, on the basis of the arguments, Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu took legal counsel representing Raila  Odinga to task over their plea that the Supreme Court should declare him the winner of the 2022 presidential poll.

Philomena Mwilu’s tough questions

The apex court judge said the entire proceedings had been full of claims about how the electoral processes were bungled.

“What I have heard since morning is that because of the ‘dysfunctionality of the commission’ and a few others that is that nearly everything about articles 81 and 86 has been impugned,” Mwilu said.

The judge wondered how the court would go ahead and declare Raila the winner if they find out that the process failed to meet the constitutional threshold.

“In the event, we arrive at figures that show that either president-elect (Ruto) has more votes than others or the petitioner in petition 5 (Raila) in fact has more numbers, what are we to do? Are we still to declare, irrespective of all other processes having been impugned as submitted to us today?” she posed.

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