Presidential petition: Inside Ruto's replying affidavit

The DP in his 256-page affidavit to respond to Raila and his running mate Martha Karua's petition challenging his victory claimed that their dispute over stolen election is not new, but a similar pattern of challenging election meant to stop him from ascending to the presidency.

According to Ruto, Kenyans have already moved on from the election results and are not interested in Raila and Karua's call for a re-run after his team of Kenya Kwanza defeated them fairly in the August 9 polls. He claimed that Raila and Karua used surrogates to file seven other petitions challenging his victory out of shock and awe because they do not believe that he could have won the elections.

"His shock and awe should not hoodwink the Supreme Court into nullifying the election. It should not happen again, a time has come for the Supreme Court and people of goodwill to tell Raila that lightening does not strike the same spot twice," swore Ruto.

On allegations that Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission system was hacked to favour him, Ruto responded that all the evidence provided by Raila were falsified since there was no hacking that happened at the commission. Ruto denied claims that his agents intercepted, staged and altered Forms 34A stating that it was humanly impossible to alter the forms once they were sent from the polling stations.

"The petitioners' claims about the integrity of the electoral process are plainly bizarre. He cannot ask the court to order for a rerun and at the same time ask the court to declare them the winners out of his misguided believe that election can only be free and fair if he is the winner," swore Ruto.

The DP gave a blow-by-blow response to nine key issues raised by Raila and Karua in their petition, claiming that the issues are insignificant to warrant nullification of his victory. On whether the election was conducted in compliance with the Constitution and electoral laws, Dr Ruto swore that IEBC conducted the polls in substantial compliance with the Constitution and in strict conformity to the requirements for a free, fair and verifiable election.

"The errors and irregularities that they allege do not exist. If the alleged errors and irregularities exist then they are negligible, inconsequential and incapable of affecting the integrity, credibility and the declared results," swore Ruto.

He added that Raila and Azimio la Umoja agents at the national tallying centre fully participated in the verification and tallying process and only started making wild allegations when they realised his victory was eminent. Dr Ruto also defended IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati, stating that he was within his constitutional powers to declare him president-elect despite opposition from four commissioners.

He swore that commissioners Juliana Cherera, Justus Nyangaya, Francis Wanderi and Irene Masit acted out of ignorance by believing that they had a role to play in the tallying and declaration of presidential results when the role is fully reserved for the chairman. On Raila's claims that the IEBC declared the presidential results without verifying and tallying results from 27 constituencies, the DP said that his agents at Bomas of Kenya confirmed to him that all the results were tallied and verified in the presence of everyone.

"The final results in Form 34C clearly show that results from the 27 constituencies were tallied, verified and openly announced to the delegates at the national tallying centre in the presence of international observers and the media," he said.

Dr Ruto also maintained that he met the 50 per cent plus one vote threshold and that those claiming he did not attain the threshold miscalculated the total number of votes. He added that Raila's witnesses lied under oath that there were alterations done in Forms 34A and 34B when all the candidates had access to original forms uploaded from the polling stations. He also disputed claims that his agents altered and dumped 11,000 Forms 34A in the IEBC portal within eight minutes, stating that it was humanly impossible.

"Our conclusion is the petitioners falsified logs in support of their claims that we had an external address to hack into the IEBC system and infiltrate it with altered forms."