Kenya’s opposition will challenge President Uhuru Kenyatta’s election victory at the Supreme Court, opposition leader Raila Odinga has announced.
Odinga, who lost to Kenyatta in the August 8 presidential race, made an announcement on Wednesday accusing the ruling party of a “computer-generated presidency”.
Odinga has claimed that the election results were hacked and rigged in favour of the incumbent, Kenyatta, who won a second term with 54 percent of the vote.
Kenya’s election commission has said there was a hacking attempt but it failed, and election observers have said they saw no signs of interference with the vote.
Odinga received 44.74 percent of the votes.
The opposition last week said going to court was not an option, but Odinga on Wednesday made it clear it is an option now.
“We will not accept and move on,” he said. “We shall hold vigils, moments of silence, beat drums and do everything else to draw attention to the gross electoral injustices.”
The opposition has until the end of Friday to file a petition challenging the vote results.
Odinga’s challenge after losing the 2013 election to Kenyatta was unsuccessful.
Kenyatta won with just over 50 percent of that 2013 vote. No candidate’s legal challenge against a presidential election in Kenya has ever been successful.
The streets of Nairobi’s populous slum of Kibera were empty in advance of Odinga’s statements, with businesses closed as they awaited his announcement on Wednesday.
The opposition stronghold has seen some of the worst clashes between police and civilians protesting the results after the electoral commission announced Kenyatta’s win late on Friday.
Days of sometimes violent street protests, crushed by police, have left at least 17 people dead – among them two children – since the declaration of Kenyatta’s victory on Friday.
The bloodshed has spurred traumatic memories of the clashes that followed the country’s presidential vote in 2007, when a wave of politically-motivated tribal violence left over 1,100 dead.
