Raila Odinga
Reading through the evidence given to the Court by the Opposition Coalition I do not think the Court had much of a choice, in fact I am surprised the decision was not unanimous. But its historical significance is enormous and the timing could not have been better for the MDC Alliance in Zimbabwe.
I know everyone uses the “Official” figures for previous MDC contested elections here since 2000 but in my view, based on information gleaned from many sources, Morgan Tsvangirai won the 2002 Presidential ballot by a wide margin, he certainly won the 2008 ballot beating Mugabe with 54 per cent of the ballot compared to 27 per cent for Mr. Mugabe.
The decision to deny him the Presidency was both internal, led by the Military and external, led by South Africa and is a blot on the record of both SADC, the AU and our own service chiefs who failed their countries faith in them.
Perhaps, just possibly, next time will be different. One thing everybody will have to now recognize is the sophistication of the means being used to change election results. Perhaps we should call this new phenomena the “Trump Factor”.
Africa Union Surprise Announcement on Kenya Poll
The decision of Kenya’s Supreme Court to annul the re-election of outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta and order a rerun “does honour to Africa”, African Union chief Alpha Conde said on Monday.
The groundbreaking ruling on Friday annulling the August 8 presidential election was a first on the continent, where elections have often been tainted by intimidation and fraud.
“This is behaviour that does honour to Africa and proves that democracy is now installed on the continent,” Conde said.
The African Union “appreciates the spirit of maturity and responsibility shown by all parties to the process, who preferred legal channels to violence”, added Conde, who is also president of Guinea.
“Africa will be what we want it to be,” he said.
Veteran Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga, who challenged the result in court, hailed the “historic” ruling.
Kenyatta accepted it but railed at the judiciary and refused opposition demands to replace the electoral commission, widely seen as tarnished.
When the poll body declared Kenyatta victorious with 54.27% of the votes, protests and riots broke out and were harshly put down by police, claiming at least 21 lives.
Citing serious irregularities in the electronic transmission of results, the court declared Kenyatta’s victory “invalid, null and void”. The judges ordered a rerun to take place before October 31.