Court throws out president’s win and calls for new vote
NAIROBI, Kenya — President Uhuru Kenyatta’s re-election victory last month was thrown out Friday by Kenya’s Supreme Court, which ordered new voting within 60 days in a stunning decision that plunged the East African country back into political chaos.
The move to nullify an election was unprecedented on the African continent.
It gave new hope to opposition candidate Raila Odinga, who had alleged the electronic results of the Aug. 8 balloting were manipulated. He had lost by about 1.4 million votes out of roughly 15 million cast.
The court ruled 4-2 in Odinga’s favor, saying the electoral commission committed “illegalities and irregularities.” The court, whose full decision with details of its findings is expected to be released within 21 days, did not blame Kenyatta or his party.
Kenyatta said that while he respected the ruling, he “personally disagrees” with it. He urged calm in a country that has a history of postelection violence.
“Six people have decided they will go against the will of the people,” the president said, later telling his supporters that Chief Justice David Maraga “and his crooks” had taken away his victory. The official results had given Kenyatta 54 percent of the vote to Odinga’s 44 percent.
Opposition members danced in the streets, marveling at the setback for Kenyatta, the 55-year-old son of the country’s first president, in the long rivalry between the country’s top political families.
“It’s a very historic day for the people of Kenya and by extension the people of Africa,” Odinga said. “For the first time in the history of African democratization, a ruling has been made by a court nullifying irregular election of a president. This is a precedent-setting ruling.”
No African country has annulled a national election due to irregularities, Ronald Slye, a law professor at Seattle University, told The Associated Press. Slye was among those who participated in Kenya’s Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission set up after violence killed more than 1,000 people following the 2007 election.
Electoral commission chairman Wafula Chebukati said personnel changes will be made before the new vote, and he said any employee found to be involved in manipulating the results should be prosecuted.
Odinga, 72, called for the election commission to be disbanded. He also said the role of international observers who came to Kenya for the vote must be examined because they put stability ahead of credibility and had “moved fast to sanitize fraud.”
The international observers, including former Secretary of State John Kerry, had said on election day that they had seen no interference with the vote. The Carter Center said Friday that Kerry’s mission had noted that “the electronic transmission of results proved unreliable.”
After the court’s ruling, envoys from two dozen countries, including the United States, France and Germany, issued a joint statement that said the decision “demonstrated Kenya’s resilient democracy and commitment to the rule of law.”
“All electoral processes can be improved, and we will continue to support Kenya’s institutions in this important work,” the statement said.
WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained a letter drafted by President Donald Trump and a top political aide that offered an unvarnished view of Trump’s thinking in the days before the president fired FBI Director James Comey.
The circumstances and reasons for the firing are believed to be a significant element of Mueller’s investigation, which includes whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey.
The letter, drafted in May, was met with opposition from Donald McGahn, the White House counsel, who believed that its angry, meandering tone was problematic, according to a dozen administration officials and others briefed on the matter. Among McGahn’s concerns were references to conversations Trump had with Comey, including times when the FBI director told Trump he was not under investigation in the Russia inquiry.
McGahn kept the president from sending the letter to Comey, which Trump had composed with Stephen Miller, one of the president’s top political advisers. But a copy was given to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who then drafted his own letter. Rosenstein’s letter was ultimately used as the administration’s public rationale for Comey’s firing, which was that Comey mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
Mueller is investigating Russian efforts to disrupt last year’s presidential election, as well as whether Trump obstructed justice.
McGahn’s concerns about the letter shows how much he realized that the president’s rationale for firing Comey might not hold up to scrutiny, and how he and other administration officials sought to build a more defensible public case for his ouster.
Trump and his aides gave multiple justifications for Comey’s dismissal after he was fired. The first was that the FBI director had mishandled the email case. Another was that Comey had lost the confidence of the FBI. During a meeting with Russian officials, Trump went so far as to call Comey a “nut job” and said that firing him lifted pressure off the White House.