The Supreme Court ruled that the gubernatorial election that was suspended in Kakamega and Mombasa county by the Independent and Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) did not affect the election results announced on August 15.
Azimio One Kenya Coalition leader Raila Odinga filed the petition arguing that there was voter apathy and suppression following the failure of KIEMS kits in some constituencies in Kakamega and Makueni counties where the kits were deliberately mismatched.
All these he stated as schemes to tamper with the election results that declared President William Ruto as then president-elect.
IEBC, however, admitted that, due to an error on the part of the printer, there was a mix-up of the photographs of candidates; and that despite their spirited efforts to have the printer replace the ballot papers, it was logistically impossible to complete the exercise in time for elections which were due the next day.
This is because the mix-up was only discovered on the eve of the election when the ballot papers were being distributed to the polling stations; and that as a practice, ballot papers can only be opened on the eve of the election day to avoid any mischief.
The court dismissed the petition citing that Raila and his running mate Martha Karua failed to present evidence to prove that indeed IEBC deliberately tampered with the KIEMS kits to affect the election results.
The court viewed that the postponement was occasioned by a genuine mistake attributed to the printers and the discovery having been made only on the eve of the election, placed the situation out of hand.
They however declared that a mistake of this nature could have been avoided if IEBC exercised due diligence by counter checking and verifying the correctness of every detail in all the templates before approval of the printing. This is a basic standard operating procedure in printing especially of such a magnitude.