Kenya opposition leader says he’ll expose election fraud

NAIROBI, Kenya — The leader of Kenya’s opposition party said Wednesday he would challenge the results of last week’s presidential election in the Supreme Court, not in the hopes of overturning the outcome but as a way of exposing evidence of widespread vote-rigging.

“Whether the court rules in our favor or rules against us, we don’t really care,” the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, said in an interview after making the announcement in front of supporters and media. “We want this evidence to come out so that people can know how they did it and who did, so they know that it was stolen.”

At the same time, he called on Kenyans to seek justice by practicing civil disobedience if the Supreme Court fails to give a fair ruling. “This is about the people of Kenya so that the Kenyans are justified to use civil disobedience means to seek justice if they don’t get it in a court of law,” Odinga said. “So we will use all constitutional means.”

The incumbent president, Uhuru Kenyatta, was declared the winner of the Aug. 8 election with 54 percent of the vote, surpassing the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff, according to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. Odinga received 44.7 percent.

Almost immediately after the results were announced, Odinga and his supporters claimed election commission servers had been hacked to award Kenyatta a 10-point lead.