Just two of minimum five supreme court judges turned up to rule on petition to postpone Thursday’s contentious presidential vote.
Kenya’s presidential election rerun is set to go ahead on Thursday after the country’s supreme court failed to consider a petition to postpone the highly contentious vote.
Amid high tension and fears of violence, only two supreme court judges attended a hearing on Wednesday morning – three short of the five judges needed for a quorum.
“This matter cannot be heard this morning,” David Maraga, the chief justice, told reporters in Nairobi, the capital. Elections will now proceed, an election board lawyer said afterwards.
Thursday’s disputed election was called after the supreme court annulled an election held in August due to procedural irregularities. The August presidential election was won by the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta, by a margin of nine percentage points.
Opposition leaders have said they do not believe the rerun will be fair and have called on supporters to stay at home, while Kenyatta has repeatedly said voting should go ahead.
The petition, filed by three Kenyan voters, including a human rights activist, argued that officials could not ensure the polls were free, fair and credible. The failure of the supreme court to even hear the case will further polarise sentiments in east Africa’s biggest economy.
Senior members of the Electoral Commission have expressed deep concerns about the forthcoming polls. One went on leave last week and another fled to the US citing threats to her personal security.
Many observers and experts have been calling for a further delay to allow tensions to ease and essential preparations to be completed.
Maraga said one judge was unwell, another was abroad and unable to return in time, and a third was unable to come to court after her bodyguard was shot and injured on Wednesday night by unidentified gunmen.
The attack has been viewed by some commentators as a bid to intimidate the judiciary. The reasons for the absence of two other judges were not clear.
A lawyer for the election board said the supreme court statement meant the elections would proceed. “It means elections are on tomorrow. There is no order stopping the election,” lawyer Paul Muite told the Kenyan television station Citizen TV.
Protesters in the western Kenyan city of Kisumu, a stronghold of the opposition National Super Alliance (NASA), blocked roads with boulders, sticks, and burning tires after news of the supreme court statement was broadcast.
Raila Odinga, the leader of Nasa, whose legal challenge led to the decision to void the August poll but who has sworn to boycott the coming election, has said he will announce “a way forward” before voting actually starts.
“We are not fools … On Wednesday, October 25 … I will tell you how we will slay the cat,” the 72 year old veteran politician, who has lost in four elections, told supporters last week.
Nairobi city officials ruled that a Wednesday rally due to be led by Odinga at the capital’s Uhuru Park was illegal because Nasa had not followed proper procedures.
Adding to the uncertainty was a high court ruling that invalidated the appointments of constituency electoral agents for Thursday’s vote.
There will be fewer international observers than in August after the European Union mission reduced its presence, citing “the extreme tension, disruptions of polling preparations, and strong criticism that has been made of the international community.”
Odinga’s claims of vote-rigging after his defeat in 2007 elections prompted rioting and retaliation by security forces, which tipped the country into its worst crisis for decades. About 1,200 people were killed in the ethnic violence that followed.
Many Kenyans say that the potential for violence is reduced now because the country has learned from its earlier traumatic experiences; though 37 people were killed in protests after the August poll, widespread clashes have been avoided.
There have been near-daily opposition protests against both the election body and the draft electoral law, which the president has yet to sign.
Both Odinga and Kenyatta, who has been in power since 2013, have mixed uncompromising rhetoric with more conciliatory words. Kenyatta, 55, called for a weekend of “reconciliation and prayer” but warned that there would be no tolerance of “those who thrive in chaos and relish anarchy”
Source – The Guardian
Kenya’s Supreme Court to Hear Last-Minute Petition on Election Rerun
Supporters of the Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga fleeing from the police at an attempted protest in the capital, Nairobi, on Tuesday. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear a last-minute petition that may meaningfully delay the rerun of the country’s presidential election, already cast into question by the withdrawal of the main opposition candidate.
The hearing Wednesday morning, only one day before the scheduled vote, is the latest in a string of surprises that have made the election here the most high-stakes in a decade. Political rhetoric has become increasingly heated in recent weeks, with some observers saying politicians are playing on the country’s history of ethnic division, and police have sparred with protesters, sometimes using tear gas.
Kenyans initially cast presidential ballots in August, and the incumbent president, Uhuru Kenyatta, was declared the winner by a 1.4 million vote margin. But the opposition leader Raila Odinga challenged the vote, and in September the Supreme Court nullified the results and called for a rerun within 60 days.
Just weeks later, however, Mr. Odinga surprised the country and threw the new vote into question by withdrawing his candidacy. He maintains that Kenya’s election commission cannot oversee a credible poll without significant changes, including of key personnel.
Mr. Odinga’s position appeared to be bolstered by the resignation last week of one of Kenya’s election commissioners, and by a public statement from the commission’s chairman, Wafula Chebukati, that he could not guarantee “a free, fair and credible election.”
Mr. Chebukati was speaking at a news conference within hours of the resignation of the commissioner, Roselyn Akombe. She made her announcement from New York, where she had fled, she said, because of threats against her and her colleagues.
A legitimate poll, Mr. Chebukati said, would require some kind of agreement between Mr. Odinga and Mr. Kenyatta, but both men have repeatedly refused dialogue.
The latest petition essentially asks Kenya’s highest court to rule whether a vote on Thursday could still be deemed credible after Mr. Chebukati’s comments, according to Haron M. Ndubi, the lawyer representing the petitioners.
Mr. Chebukati’s statement is a key basis for the petition’s arguments, along with an internal memo from Ms. Akombe alleging sabotage inside the commission and physical threats to her from a fellow commissioner.
“The chairman is the only one mandated to say who is the winner and who is the loser,” said one of the three civil society activists who filed the petition, Khelef Khalifa, the director of Muslims for Human Rights. “If he himself says he cannot guarantee this election will be free and fair, you say to yourself, what is this whole thing? When the chairman says we’re not ready, you must also cancel it.”
The three filed the petition, based on their standing as Kenyan voters, on Oct. 22. The court agreed on Tuesday afternoon to hear arguments from both sides on Wednesday morning.
The petitioners also argue that Mr. Odinga’s withdrawal should have reset the election clock, allowing for all the parties to hold fresh talks on nominations. That process, presumably, could have resulted in a candidate for Mr. Odinga’s political party, but it also would have delayed the elections for at least another 30 days — or perhaps longer, depending on the court’s interpretation of Kenya’s election law and the court’s prior rulings.
Mr. Khalifa argued that the petition was also motivated by a hope to save off more widespread violence. Nearly 70 people have been killed at the hands of state security forces, according to human rights groups.
“This is a very very dangerous situation,” he said by telephone from Mombasa, Kenya’s second-largest city after Nairobi. “The state of things now worries us. There is so much more tribal animosity now than ever before.”
“This country, it can easily go the Rwanda way,” he added, invoking the 1994 genocide in the East African country.
Mr. Kenyatta, however, has consistently demanded that the vote happen without additional delays.
The court scheduled the new hearing a day after 20 ambassadors from Europe, the United States and Australia issued a joint statement acknowledging that “the deteriorating political environment” and “inflammatory rhetoric, attacks on institutions, and growing insecurity all make holding a credible and fair poll more difficult.”
But at the same time, Western diplomats have been pushing for a vote sooner rather than later.
“I don’t want to suggest by this remark that I’m saying the election has to be held on Oct. 26, but this election cycle at some point does have to come to an end,” Robert F. Godec, the United States ambassador to Kenya, said at a news conference on Monday.
Mr. Ndubi, the lawyer representing the petitioners, said reports of intimidation and violence also undermined the credibility of the scheduled poll.
Two key opposition politicians were charged in court on Monday with interference in election activities and intimidating elections officials. One of them was Mr. Odinga’s sister, Ruth, who is deputy governor of Kisumu County, an opposition stronghold.
Anne Waiguru, the governor of Kirinyaga County in central Kenya who is a member of the ruling party, also raised eyebrows this week when she campaigned in faux fatigues. Many Kenyans argued on the radio and on social media that the military-style gear was a form of intimidation