Kenya Begins Election Petition Hearing

A seven-judge bench has begun hearing petitions seeking to overturn the election of William Ruto as Kenya’s president elect.

Led by Chief Justice, Martha Koome, the judges have ordered the electoral commission to grant party agents of presidential candidate Raila Odinga supervised access to computer servers that were used for transmission and storage of voting data.

Recounting of vote
The court also gave a 48-hour order for scrutiny and recount of votes from 15 polling stations as part of an election challenge filed by Mr. Odinga after the election commission chairman Wafula Chebukati declared Deputy President William Ruto the winner of the August 9, presidential poll.

Chief Justice Martha Koome also directed the head of the police to provide adequate security to representatives during the exercise to be conducted at an undisclosed location.

Petitions
Report says the court has struck out two petitions and consolidated seven others because they raised similar issues and sought the same orders.

The court also rejected three applications including a request by Mr. Ruto, who sought to bar the Law Society of Kenya from the case.

During the pre-trial conference, the court set rules for the hearing including time allocated for each party and representation.

Mr. Odinga rejected the election result saying the announcement of Mr. Ruto as president-elect was unlawful citing divisions among electoral commissioners and the failure of Mr. Chebukati to explain how he arrived at the final tally.

Mr. Chebukati declared Mr. Ruto the winner, saying he garnered 7.1 million votes to Mr. Odinga’s 6.9 million.

The case will proceed to a full hearing on Wednesday.

BBC/CO