William Ruto lawyers say petitions 'works of fiction'

According to the senior counsel, the petitioners have tried to prank the court by saying Forms 34A from 11,000 polling centres were hijacked midair, altered, and votes for one candidate removed and added to Ruto.

Ngatia asked the Supreme Court judges not to take the country back to an election cycle by nullifying Ruto's victory which will allow the political class to continue holding the country at ransom. "They are asking you to nullify the election but not providing a solution. If you nullify the election then you will be effectively acceding to the request that any person can walk to the Supreme Court after losing an election and hold the country at ransom," said Ngatia.

He added that should the court issue orders sought by the petitioners, the country will face a constitutional crisis since IEBC will not carry another poll while the current president will not exercise executive power.

Ruto further claimed that there were senior state officials who were hell-bent to ensure that he is not declared the winner, including storming the national tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya to force IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati to announce Raila as the winner or force a run-off.

'Rebel' commissioners

Mr Kilukumi in his submissions claims that after failing to prevail upon the IEBC chairman to declare Raila as president or force a runoff, they instigated fallout within the commission, with four commissioners walking out to disown the results.

According to Kilukumi, Ruto is a member of the National Security Council and that at no time had they met to discuss and pass a resolution to advise IEBC on how to conduct the election. He urged the court to believe Chebukati that the Deputy President was validly elected the president, and that it is absurd the IEBC commissioners are coming to seek nullification of an election they conducted.

"The petitioner is here telling you to either give him the baby (presidency) or cut the baby into two and order a rerun. That tells you who owns the baby, the father of the baby if William Ruto. We ask that you dismiss the petitions," said Kilukumi.

On the issue of whether technology employed by IEBC for conduct of the presidential election met the standards of integrity, security and transparency, Ruto's team stated that the system functioned well that no one can dispute the results. Mr Kigen, who submitted on the bit, stated that Raila's complaint that the IEBC system was infiltrated was not true since no evidence showed someone no authosied by the commission accessed the system.

"There was nothing to show that Ruto was in collusion with IEBC officials or any other third party to rig the elections. All the party agents were called and confirmed that all entries had been entered correctly in the system," said Kigen.

He added that the process of verification of Forms 34A before being translated to Forms 34B took six days and they never objected until the last day when four commissioners walked out after realising that Ruto was winning. According to Kigen, they picked all Forms 34A that were alleged to had been altered and took them to the polling stations where the agents confirmed that thos presented by the petitioners were forgeries.

"Even the evidence by their key witnesses like John Githongo are third level hearsay, based on evidence of someone who is unidentified. They cannot be relied on by this court to nullify the election," he said.

Dr Muthomi Thiankolu termed the petitions challenging the presidential election as nothing but a royal comedy and tragedy with spurious allegations that cannot be substantiated.

"Even if you were to be benevolent as Father Christmas, you cannot allow the case before you which is full of fury but has nothing. Tell the petitioners not to waste the time of the Supreme Court by bringing things that are not backed by evidence," said Thiankolu.

On the question whether there were unexplained discrepancies in presidential votes compared to other elective positions, lawyer Melissa Ngania argued that the variance had been explained by IEBC on the stray votes.

She added that voters are not interested in what happened at Bomas of Kenya during the declaration of results since they only want their votes to be respected. On the postponements of election in Kakamega and Mombasa, she submitted that the votes in those area were counted and tabulated, and that no one is contesting the votes from those places.