Azimio la Umoja lays out case on how poll body messed up

"If a fresh election is to be ordered to be done now, yet one of the reliefs is that we find the chair unfit to hold public office, how is that possible since the constitution does not contemplate such a lacuna?" Justice Mohamed Ibrahim posited.

Raila's rallying call that Deputy President William Ruto was not validly declared as president-elect was led by Senior Counsel James Orengo.

Orengo, who was recently elected Siaya governor, summed up their submissions stating that what happened at the national tallying centre was a crime that should not go unpunished.

"What happened is not just a conspiracy theory or any other ordinary event. What happened marked a pattern of constitutional violation to undermine people's authority and in the future, there should be an inquiry into the criminal activities that took place during the election," said Orengo.

From the nine issues framed by the Supreme Court for determination, Raila's legal team divided themselves to address each question while backed up with evidence to prove the presidential election was a sham.

Orengo began the onslaught by arguing that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission repeated the same mistake it did in 2017 by conducting an election which was not free, fair, accurate and accountable.

According to the senior counsel, the divided and dysfunctional commission made it impossible for any Kenyan to believe that the final declaration of Ruto as president-elect came out of a credible process.

"Indeed the tower of Babel that is IEBC has been brought down before the Supreme Court by the two warring factions, which make it impossible to believe that there was any credible and accurate presidential election," said Orengo.

Lawyer Julie Soweto. [Collins Kweyu, Standard]

"The systematic deduction of Raila's votes continued across other polling station in which a total of 4,663 votes were deducted from his tally in 25 polling stations in Baringo and 15 in Nairobi which were added to Ruto," said Soweto.

Soweto also dwelt on the issue on whether the postponement of the election in Kakamega, Mombasa and four other constituencies affected the presidential election stating that they were deliberately done to suppress Raila's votes in his strongholds.

"It was not a coincidence that the electronic voting system also failed only in Raila's strongholds. The effect was the voters were suppressed and failed to vote as evidenced in the different voter turnout in their neighbouring counties, which had a higher turnout," said Soweto.

On the discrepancies between the total votes cast for the presidency and other elective seats, Soweto told the court that there were a total of 33,208 votes which could not be accounted for especially in areas perceived to be Ruto's stronghold.

"We have discovered that there were an average of 3 votes per polling station across the country which were added to the presidential votes which translate to over 180,000 unaccounted votes for the presidential election," said Soweto.

Lawyer Paul Mwangi explained to the court that the IEBC did not carry out the tallying, verification and transmission of the results in accordance with the law. He said there was no basis for Chebukati to assume all the roles in exclusion of other commissioners when his role was only to declare the results.

"Even in a football match, we cannot leave some critical decision to one referee. That is why we have a video assistant referee. The chairman could not make those critical decisions on verification and tallying of results alone," said Mwangi.