Nairobi, Kenya - Kenya's Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD), which featured outgoing Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, may have scored a first-round victory in its bid to challenge Uhuru Kenyatta's victory in the 4 March presidential polls in Kenya.
CORD, the biggest Coalition in Kenya going by the number of its seat in the Senate, has managed to force the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to release documents it requires to file an urgent petition.
The party is racing against time to file a Supreme Court petition to challenge Kenyatta's pending installation as the fourth Kenyan President.
CORD lawyers, appearing before High Court judge, Justice Issack Lenaola, sought IEBC's immediate release of the certified copies of the various results as filed by polling officials from 291 constituencies.
They also sought the release of a copy of the contracts signed between the mobile phone company, Safaricom, and the IEBC for the supply of a Private Virtual Network, which allowed poll officials to file results from areas with no mobile reach to the IEBC centre.
Safaricom's lawyers agreed to release the contracts and all the Short Messages sent by the poll officials during the elections, which CORD said was tainted by rigging of results, leading to loss of most of its votes.
The IEBC also agreed to provide the results and the tallies of the Presidential results within five days, but the judge ordered the parties to report back to Court by Friday to review progress.
Meanwhile, Odinga has applauded all elected officials of his party at a meeting in Nairobi, where he briefed them on the progress of his party's efforts to challenge the results.
'Some of you stood with CORD against great odds and in the midst of obvious options that would have seen you ride easily to victory,' he said. 'You chose principle over convenience and comfort and ran on CORD ticket,' Odinga said.
Kenya's Supreme Court, currently properly constituted with more than five Judges required to have a sitting, is the only entity allowed to handle issues relating to disputes over the Presidency.
Its decision over the Presidential poll results would be watched the world over as a testimony to the pace of constitutional and institutional reforms that Kenya would have achieved since its last election.
Odinga, revered locally for his fight to have the reform of the institutions, said he would respect its outcome on the results.
'We will be moving to court to secure the gains we have made so far and to get more. The Supreme Court that we are moving to is itself a product of a long and painful struggle that caused people their careers and lives,' Odinga, Kenya's longest-serving political detainee, told his party.
The seven-day window for his party to move to the Supreme Court expires Friday. He said his party was motivated by the need to defend democracy, which is worth fighting for in Kenya.
Pana 14/03/2013