Kenya Supreme Court Nullifies Presidential Election

He said it was the first example in Africa in which a court nullified the re-election of an incumbent.

The election on Aug. 8 was conducted peacefully and was largely praised by international observers. But David Maraga, the court’s chief justice, declared the result “invalid, null and void” after siding with the opposition, which had argued that the vote had been electronically manipulated to assure a victory for President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Mr. Kenyatta, 55, had been re-elected with 54 percent of the vote, easily surpassing the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. His main challenger, Raila Odinga, 72, who petitioned the Supreme Court to nullify the election, had received about 44 percent, a difference of about 1.4 million votes. A parallel tally by domestic observers endorsed the official result.

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The decision came as a surprise, even to Mr. Odinga and his supporters, who had complained about election irregularities. A top election official in charge of voting technology was killed about a week before the election, and although the casting of ballots went smoothly, the electronic transmission of vote tallies was flawed, leading the opposition to assert that as many as seven million votes had been stolen.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, which was in charge of the vote, “failed, neglected, or refused to conduct the presidential election in a manner consistent with the dictates of the Constitution,” the court said.

The six-judge Supreme Court found no misconduct on the part of the president, Mr. Kenyatta, but it found that the commission “committed irregularities and illegalities in the transmission of results” and unspecified other issues.

“Irregularities affected the integrity of the poll,” Justice Maraga told a stunned courtroom.

A new vote means that candidates will have to start campaigning again and possibly raise millions of dollars: Elections in Kenya generally cost about $1 billion, including spending by the candidates during the campaign and by the government to hold the election.

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Thousands of people in the opposition strongholds of Kisumu, Mombasa and parts of Nairobi streamed into the streets and whooped with joy after the news was announced on Friday. Supporters of Mr. Kenyatta in Gatundu, his hometown, were subdued.

“I am happy to be Kenyan today,” said Mr. Odinga, a former prime minister now in his fourth run for the presidency. “It is a historic day for the people of Kenya, and by extension the people of Africa.”

“This is a precedent-setting ruling,” he said, adding that it was the first time in the history of African democratization that “a ruling has been made by a court nullifying irregular presidential elections.”

Mr. Odinga, said that his team planned to take members of the electoral commission to court, saying that they had “committed a criminal act” and belonged in jail.

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Mr. Kenyatta, the president, said he respected the ruling and called on all Kenyans to respond peacefully, but he also made clear his anger toward the court.

“Millions of Kenyans queued, made their choice, and six people have decided that they will go against the will of the people,” he said.

Security had been increased on Friday in opposition strongholds amid concern that a ruling in favor of either side could provoke protests or worse. Kenya experienced postelection violence after presidential votes in 2007, 2013 and last month, when at least 24 people were killed, most of them by security forces.

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“My concern is that no matter what the court says, the losers will react violently,” John Campbell, a senior fellow for Africa policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former ambassador to Nigeria, said before the ruling.

Mr. Campbell expressed concern that “neither Kenyatta nor Odinga prepared their followers for the possibility of losing.”

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Immediately after the court’s announcement, however, the atmosphere was more of joy than fear, and there were no immediate reports of violence in strongholds on the losing side, including Gatundu. There, supporters were seen carrying mock coffins with the words “R.I.P. Jubilee” painted on the sides, referring to Mr. Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party.

The Supreme Court, which has bolstered its independence in recent years but had still been viewed by many Kenyans as under government influence, was facing pressure to set out arguments that would persuade people on either side, said Mr. Omondi, the country director for the National Democratic Institute.

The case was an opportunity for the judiciary to truly show its independence, he added, especially after it came under intense criticism for mishandling a similar petition by Mr. Odinga in 2013, which the presiding judge alluded to on Friday at the start of his remarks.

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The election controversy hinged on two paper forms that legally validate the ballots — one from each of the country’s 40,883 polling stations and the other from 290 constituencies. Representatives from rival parties were required to approve the forms before they were scanned and electronically transmitted to a national tallying center in Nairobi, where they were to be put online immediately so they could be crosschecked.

But the electronic system, which had been overseen by Christopher Chege Msando, the election official who was killed, broke down. Therefore, only the results, not the forms, were sent to the national tallying center, often by text message.

International election observers were quick to praise the electoral body after the vote, saying there was no evidence that the votes had been tampered with at polling stations and that the paper forms would show clearly who had won. The observers assumed the forms would be easily verifiable and would be matched with figures texted to the tallying center by party officials.

But when Mr. Kenyatta was initially declared the winner, just hours after voting ended, almost none of the forms from the polling stations were online, even though the electoral commission had had a week to receive scanned images of the results.

A couple of days later, the commission announced that about 10,000 forms were unaccounted for, sowing even more doubt and suspicion over its credibility.

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“The scenario was similar to that of the Bermuda Triangle, where no one knows how ships disappear,” said Pheroze Nowrojee, a lawyer representing Mr. Odinga and the National Super Alliance, the opposition umbrella group.

The electoral commission said it had presented the forms, a claim that was verified in a report by the registrar of the Supreme Court. However, that report found that a third of the forms had lacked security features like watermarks or serial numbers, which election observers saw as evidence that the forms were probably false.

Defending the integrity of the election, Wafula Chebukati, the chairman of the election commission, noted that the focus of the decision was on the transmission of the results, not on the voting or the counting of the ballots. He urged investigators to prosecute “any of our staff that may have been in violation of the Elections Offenses Act.”

Walter Mebane, a professor of statistics and political science at the University of Michigan who studies elections worldwide, volunteered to run the voting results through a computer model he developed to detect electoral fraud. Based on statistics only, and without knowledge of the intricacies of Kenyan politics, he and his team found patterns that showed widespread manipulation.

“It was unlike any data set I had ever seen,” he said. “Every single indicator came up signaling anomalies. It’s a huge red flag that something weird is going on.”

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Former Penn State frat member no longer charged in hazing case: ‘No winners here’

Joseph Ems, a former Penn State University fraternity member who is no longer facing a charge in connection with the death of a pledge at the fraternity house earlier this year, told ABC News he feels “very relieved” but added there are “no winners here.”

Centre County District Judge Allen Sinclair today dismissed charges completely against four former fraternity members who were facing single counts of either tampering with evidence or recklessly endangering another person in this case, including dismissing the charge of recklessly endangering another person that Ems was facing.

Ems’ attorney, William Brennan, told ABC News today, “There are no winners here — a young man died. That tragedy doesn’t mean someone like Joey Ems should be held responsible for it. … He’s innocent. He shouldn’t have been charged.”

The judge also today dropped the most serious charges — involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault — for eight former fraternity members.

Instead, Sinclair said today the cases against 12 students will head to trial but for less serious alleged offenses. Those charges include recklessly endangering another person, hazing, furnishing alcohol to minor, tampering with evidence and unlawful acts related to liquor, according to the prosecutor’s office.

Two additional students facing charges waived the preliminary hearing, so they are automatically continuing on to court.

Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller said in a statement that the prosecution will be refiling the involuntary manslaughter charges “and will be reviewing the other charges for the same consideration.”

The charges, initially against 18 students, stemmed from the death of Timothy Piazza, a 19-year-old sophomore and pledge at Beta Theta Pi, who died Feb. 4 after he fell down the stairs during a night of drinking for a pledge ceremony at the house on the night of Feb. 2.

Courtesy Piazza Family

In text messages, fraternity members refer to the pledge ceremony drinking as an “obstacle course.” Fraternity members did not call 911 until the morning of Feb. 3, about 12 hours after Piazza’s fall, according to a report on the grand jury’s investigation. High-quality surveillance video captured Piazza’s final movements throughout that night, including him falling multiple times. Piazza’s death “was the direct result of traumatic brain injuries,” according to the forensic pathologist.

Courtesy Piazza Family

Prosecutors allege that the former fraternity brothers at Beta Theta Pi waited to get Piazza help in an attempt to cover up their drinking and “coordinate a story.”

But one of the defense attorneys in the case told ABC News earlier, “Of course, it’s a tragedy. But that doesn’t mean there’s any intent involved in any of this.”

The fraternity itself was also bound over on charges, according to the prosecutor’s office.

No defendants have entered pleas.

Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo

Parks Miller said in a statement on the judge’s decision to drop the involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault charges, “We respect the Judge and have worked with him a long time, but in this case we disagree with his decision, as did the Centre County Investigating Grand Jury.

“This case was thoroughly vetted and dissected by the dedicated Centre County Grand Jury for over two-and-a-half months,” she said. “After weighing and measuring the evidence and Pennsylvania law in this matter, after great deliberation, they thoughtfully returned a presentment finding probable cause against each and every defendant for every charge presented, including involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault — reckless mindset. No less than 12 Grand Jurors previously agreed that there was probable cause for these charges.”

Parks Miller added that the charges still going to trial is a big step forward for the Piazza family, saying, “The path to justice is long and sometimes vexing, but we are unwavering in our commitment to the Piazza’s and this case.”

Piazza’s father, Jim Piazza, told ABC News after today’s ruling, “This is just one step further into getting justice and the story being told. … I am relieved that we have this part of it behind us.”

Tim Piazza’s mother, Evelyn Piazza, told ABC News that, going forward, “We would like people to be held accountable for their actions — or inactions.”

“It cannot happen again,” she said. “Nobody should go through this.”

Ems added to ABC News, “My heart goes out to the Piazzas. It’s terrible.”

In the wake of Timothy Piazza’s death, Penn State announced new reforms including limiting alcohol to beer and wine and banning kegs; emphasis on a zero-tolerance policy for hazing; more mandatory educational programming for Greek Life members; and “a significant reduction in the number of permitted socials with alcohol per semester.”

The Beta Theta Pi fraternity has since been barred from Penn State.

ABC News’ Stephanie Gomulka and Katie O’Brien contributed to this report.

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