Why Supreme Court unanimously upheld President-elect William Ruto's poll win

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the election win of President-elect William Ruto.

In an abridged ruling read out by Chief Justice Martha Koome, decision to uphold Ruto's win was a unanimous one by all the seven judges.

The judges sided with the respondents on all the nine key issues that were supposed to be answered during the presidential petition hearing.

The first issue was on whether the technology deployed by IEBC during 2022 General Election met the standards of integrity, verifiability, security and transparency to guarantee accurate and verifiable results, all the seven Supreme Court judges ruled that petitioners' failed to prove otherwise.

The judges also said that petitioners' failed to prove beyond any reasonable doubts the claim that there was interference with the uploading and transmissions of Forms 3A from the polling stations to the IEBC public portal.

The judges affirmed that indeed there was no difference between Forms 34A uploaded in the IEBC portal and Forms 34A received at the national tallying center, and Forms 34A issued to the agents at the polling stations.

On whether the postponement of gubernatorial elections in Kakamega and Mombasa counties and others resulted in voter suppression, the judges ruled that postponement did not affect presidential election outcome.

The seven judges also said that IEBC lawyers explicitly explained the 'minor' discrepancies between the votes cast for presidential candidates and other elective positions.

Further, the court ruled that IEBC carried out verification, tallying, and declaration of election results in accordance with the provisions of the constitution.

On whether the declared President-elect attained 50%+1 of all the votes cast in accordance with Article 138(4) of the Constitution, the court found that Ruto attained 50%+1 of all the votes cast in accordance with Article 138(4) of the Constitution.

The Court found that the illegalities and irregularities pointed out by the petitioners were not of such magnitude as to affect the final result of the Presidential Election.

On what reliefs and orders can the Supreme Court grant /issue? The court found that in a Presidential Election Petition it can only issue orders stipulated under Article 140 of the Constitution. In that, it can either, where it finds that the election of the President-elect is invalid, nullify the election and direct IEBC to hold a fresh election; or, declare the election of the President-elect as valid.