Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday accused the Supreme Court of having perpetrated a “coup d’etat” by invalidating his re-election in the August 8 ballot in a new rant against the highest court in the country. / strong>
“Here in Kenya we wrote the story, because a coup was led by four people in a court,” said the president, referring to the September 1 ruling by a majority – four judges against two – the Supreme Court, seized by the opposition.
Mr. Kenyatta spoke on Thursday from the presidential palace as he met with leaders in the north of the country after the full and detailed ruling of the Supreme Court overwhelming the Electoral Commission (IEBC) for its management of the vote of 8 August.
The president, whose speech was broadcast live on Kenyan television, said the Supreme Court’s judgment undermined democracy and compared the decision to invalidate the election to military coups d’état other countries of the continent. “The judgment of a few people has nullified the progress made over the years. ”
Vice-President William Ruto, who spoke before Kenyatta, spoke of a “tyranny of justice”.
While many doubts exist about the organization of the new election for the expected date of October 17, the attacks of the presidential camp against the Supreme Court do not falter.
After announcing the decision to invalidate his re-election with 54.27% of the vote, Kenyatta called the judges “swindlers” and promised to “settle” the problems he believes exist in the judicial system.
The opposition did not weaken in its sharp criticism of the IEBC, and warned that it would boycott the new ballot if its demands submitted to the Electoral Commission – including the resignation of several of its members – are not met.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court in particular criticized the IEBC for having proclaimed the results on the basis of verbatim reports that were sometimes “doubtful” and for not allowing access to its computer servers to verify accusations of computer hacking.
The Supreme Court has said that its criticisms are mainly aimed at the transmission of the results and that it has no reason to doubt the operations of registration of voters or of voting operations on election day, in particular. It also rejected a request by the opposition to prosecute IEBC officials, referring instead to “systemic institutional problems”.
The Constitution requires that a new ballot be held within 60 days of the Supreme Court’s decision, by October 31.
Source: Maliactu.net
