Raila Odinga (L) sings national anthem during a special National Delegates Conference in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, May 5, 2017. (Xinhua/Allan Mutiso)
NAIROBI, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on Friday night filed a case asking the Supreme Court to nullify President Uhuru Kenyatta's re-election.
Odinga's National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition said in a statement that the entire election is "fatally compromised."
"The entire process of tallying recording, transmitting, verifying and confirmation of results was so fundamentally flawed that you can not talk of any meaningful results." Odinga said in the petition.
The opposition leader and his running mate Kalonzo Musyoka argued the relay of the presidential election results from tallying centers did not meet the required standards of accountability, transparency and verifiability.
"The series of gaps, whether deliberate or product of negligence, frustrated the use of technology to deliver an accountable result transmission process," NASA officials said.
According to the petition, party agents especially in the Rift Valley region, the stronghold of Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto, were removed from poll centers. Fictitious poll agents signed blank result forms while an analysis of some 25,000 result forms out of 40,833 discovered 14,000 of them had errors, which prevent them from being authentic.
Illegal voting and results also emerged from 443 polling centers, which were not officially listed as voting centers as required by the election regulations.
"Worse, the process of relaying and transmitting results from polling stations to constituency to the National Tallying Center did not meet the standard established in the Constitution: it was not simple, accurate, verifiable, secure, accountable, transparent, open or prompt," Odinga said.
Foreign observers have mostly certified the elections as meeting the international standards of fair, free, credible and transparent.
However, Odinga said the foreign observers exceeded their mandate by asking him to concede defeat way back before the final results were announced.
Odinga said his party was baffled that by the time the chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Wafula Chebukati was announcing the results, some election centers with some 7 million votes, which include 11,883 polling stations, were yet to send results.
NASA officials said the IEBC Chairman confirmed days later that 5,015 forms, which represent 3.5 million votes, were also not within the Commission's possession when it declared Kenyatta the winner.
Odinga who unsuccessfully contested an election in 2013, sparking violent post-election protests, this time curtailed potential violence by resolving to take his case to court.
His decision to go to the judiciary relieved many Kenyans who feared a repeat of the violence that followed a 2007 vote when Odinga called for protests.
Judges eventually ruled in 2013 that much of his evidence was being submitted outside time limits set by the court, frustrating his supporters and sparking suspicion over the judiciary's independence.
However, he vowed on Wednesday to soldier on with his quest for a fair, just and democratic society even as he sought legal redress to electoral malpractices that denied his victory on Aug. 8 when Kenyans cast the ballot in large numbers.
The rigging claims sparked violent protests in the opposition stronghold after the electoral commission declared Kenyatta the winner on Aug. 11.
