Kenya's defeated prime minister then sued over the outcome of the election, expert: it is difficult to change the outcome

The Paper's reporter Wang Zhuoyi

On August 22, local time, the lawyer of the former prime minister and leader of the opposition "National Super Alliance" who lost the Kenyan presidential election on the 9th, Ortinga, told the media that Odinga had filed a complaint online with the country's Supreme Court, questioning the election results won by its rival, the current vice president William Ruto, with 50.49% of the vote.

On August 16, 2022, local time, Nairobi, Kenyan presidential candidate Laila Otinga spoke at a press conference at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) in Nairobi. Visual China figure

Kenya's Supreme Court will rule within 14 days, and if the Supreme Court declares the election results invalid, a new vote must be held within 60 days.

However, Zhou Yuyuan, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, told the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) that There is no suspense in Ruto's election as the next president of Kenya, and Kenya will not fall into political turmoil because of the lawsuit.

Another foreign media pointed out that this is the third consecutive time that Odinga has questioned the election results. While some have ridiculed Mr. Ortinga, who has long been the leader of the opposition, as someone who can't afford to lose, analysts say Mr. O'Tinga's complaint is crucial to reshaping and improving Kenya's electoral process, and that whatever the Supreme Court ultimately decides will help further improve voting in later elections.

A majority of the members of the Electoral Commission do not recognize the results

According to the British "Guardian" reported on August 22, 4 of the 7 members of kenya's election commission refused to recognize the result of Ruto's victory. They claimed the results were "opaque" and said that the chairman of the election commission, Wafula Chebukati, manipulated the process of issuing the election announcement and unilaterally announced the results. Odinga thus said the election results were "invalid".

According to Agence France-Presse reported on August 22, Daniel Maanzo, a member of the Otinga legal team, said he was confident of winning after the lawsuit.

It is reported that on the 22nd, hundreds of Odinga supporters gathered outside the Supreme Court, blew a whistle, and held up a sign that read, "Electoral Justice, Now!" Placards with words like "We want justice now."

According to the Guardian, some civil society groups also filed a lawsuit with the Kenyan Supreme Court on the 22nd, asking the Supreme Court to declare Ruto's victory invalid on the grounds of electoral fraud and procedural failure.

"At the end of the day, we don't even know how many people voted." Betty Okero, national coordinator of the Angaza Movement coalition, argues that "it was vague until the end." ”

The Supreme Court may also consider lawsuits by groups and individuals other than Odinga challenging the election results.

Otinga has run for president four times, the third time in a row that he has filed a lawsuit over the outcome of the election. In March 2013, Kenya's Supreme Court rejected the claims of Mr. Otinga's party, ruling that the results of the presidential election were valid, People's Daily reported. According to Xinhua News Agency, in September 2017, although the Kenya Supreme Court ruled that the election was invalid, in the re-held presidential election in November of that year, Odinga still lost, and then-President Kenyatta was re-elected.

Will Kenya learn its lesson?

Zhou Yuyuan pointed out that the Kenya Election Commission has made meticulous preparations for this election, and this election procedure is compliant, which truly reflects the wishes of Kenyan voters. Election observation missions of the African Union, African countries and Western countries also believe that this election is basically open and transparent. Therefore, he believes that the Supreme Court will not declare the election invalid this time.

Zhu Ming, director of the Regional Cooperation Office of the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, also pointed out to the surging news that even if Odinga could have some evidence to prove that there was fraud in the election, "the nature would not be so serious that the court announced the overturning of the election results."

Although the presidential election voting day was spent in calm, the results of the election announced a week ago caused protests in some of Odinga's ballots.

According to Agence France-Presse, every presidential election in Kenya since 2002 has sparked controversy. After the 2007 election, more than 1,100 people were killed in political clashes.

However, for the controversy that may arise after this election, Both Ruto and Otinga have promised to resort to legal means before the election results are announced, rather than through street protests.

After the election results were announced, Ruto adopted a conciliatory attitude and promised to "work with all leaders," and Odinga also praised his supporters for essentially "keeping calm."

Zhu Ming pointed out that Kenya has learned the bitter lessons of the post-election riots in 2007, and the scale of the post-election turmoil has gradually become smaller since then. Zhou Yuyuan also believes that although local riots and even casualties after the election are inevitable, the "overall trend in Kenya is slowly getting better."

"On the one hand, the resilience and dynamism of Kenyan civil society means that the impact of the election itself on the people is actually very limited, or who comes to power will not make much difference to the people." On the other hand, political turmoil is often accompanied by political mobilization and organization that often uses ethnic or religious banners, and in today's Kenya, the possibility of such incitement is basically absent. Even if Odinga chooses to do so, it will only give him a notoriety of undermining democracy, and the gain will outweigh the losses. Zhou Yuyuan therefore believes that "judging from the perspective of political development, there will be no major turmoil in Kenya."

Litigation forcing electoral reform?

After the polls on Aug. 9, many Kenyans were surprised by the speed with which the election commission portal was announcing the results: The next morning, 80 percent of the results of more than 46,000 polling stations across the country had been announced, the BBC reported on August 22. Chebukati even derided the local media for being slow to count the results of the election and not keeping up with the progress of the Election Commission.

Migai Akech, an expert on public international law in Kenya, told the BBC that the Kenya Electoral Commission published the results "in record time" and "did a great job": "The whole process is more transparent, even if there is a dispute, you only need to record the results of the polling stations." ”

In the past, Kenya's vote counting process has often suffered suspicious delays, sparking controversy.

Philip Gichana, head of policy at Mzalendo, the kenyan parliamentary watchdog, said: "Despite the slow progress in electoral reform, we have made some progress," the Guardian reported.

The BBC reported that in a lawsuit filed after the defeat of the last election in 2017, Odinga argued that there was massive fraud in the election, including the election commission's failure to transmit all results electronically as required by law to reduce the risk of results being tampered with. The efficiency of the vote count results of this Kenyan election is the result of the pressure of Odin and the litigation.

Lawyer Omwanza Ombati believes that Odinga "made a great contribution to the application of electoral law in the presidential campaign." Onbati noted that Otinga has contributed to Kenya's democratic politics in terms of procurement of materiel used in elections, the hiring of electoral staff, and "polling stations are final results."

The speed and transparency with which the preliminary results of kenya's elections were announced also amazed by some other African countries, who compared the possible flaws of their own electoral system with the situation in Kenya.

Uganda's NBS television quoted Sarah Bireete, a national activist, as saying Uganda should transplant Kenya's elections because they "don't deserve to be called elections."

"Thanks to kenya for teaching the East African Community what is called transparent elections, I hope Tanzania can learn from the experience of the next election." A Tanzanian netizen wrote on Twitter.

A Nigerian Twitter user also shouted to the country's election commission: "Kenyans have shown us how to conduct elections with dignity. ”

Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Wuwei Photo Editor: Zhu Weihui

Proofreader: Yijia Xu