A lot of UDA chaps are already screaming that winning the Supreme Court case for Ruto and Chebukati is going to be easy because the Supreme Court made a ruling on the BBI case that the IEBC had a quorum when they started the BBI with only three commissioners. They claim that ruling means the IEBC can use three commissioners again on the election results.
There is a huge difference that lawyers should be able to at least see. In the BBI case the IEBC had only three commissioners because four slots were vacant. There was no other commissioner.
This time the IEBC has all seven commissioners so the issue is not the quorum but the vote of the commissioners. Four commissioners rejected the results as announced. That means the majority of the IEBC commissioners were against the results and that is what the Supreme Court will deal with in this case not a quorum.
Lawyer Nelson Havi has told the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition that they are ready for them should they file a presidential petition at the Supreme Court.
Read: Chebukati disaster ends.The four IEBC commissioners saved our country.
Havi, who vied but lost in the Westlands MP race on a UDA ticket to Tim Wanyonyi of ODM made light of the matter should it be filed.
“We are ready for them at the Supreme Court. In fact, we will use their own arguments on quorum of IEBC and the Court’s determination on the same in the BBI case,” Havi said.
“It will be the shortest fought battle at the Apex Court.”
Havi’s argument is a nonstarter in this case. Those four commissioners who rejected the results announced by Chebukati will actually be available to talk to the Supreme Court. What will the UDA big heads tell them? You tell them that they don’t matter as commissioners. If so then why should the other three matter?
The earlier argument of UDA was that the IEBC chairman does not need authorization from the commissioners to announce the results and that he can just announce what he wants.
Someone must have shown them the details of Article 138 of the constitution which deals with the functioning of the IEBC and they saw that the presidential election results being announced by the chairman have to be approved by the commissioners. Now they are turning on to the quorum issue and it is a dead one.
And yes this is going to be a very short case in the Supreme Court because the judges may not even need to hear from the political parties and can restrict themselves by just talking to all the seven commissioners and determining the vote.
If it stays 4 V 3 against the results the case could end there and a re-run ordered by the court. Who in the IEBC will oversee the re-run is the issue that may be complicated.
Adongo Ogony is a Human Rights Activist and a Writer who lives in Toronto, Canada
