President Uhuru Kenyatta, the IEBC and its Chairperson Wafula Chebukati have until Thursday midnight to file their responses to the presidential election petition filed by Opposition leaders Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka.
The deadline is derived from the amended Supreme Court Presidential Election Petition rules that provide four days, from the time of service, for the respondents to file and serve their responses.
Based on the rules, the four days elapse today as the National Super Alliance (NASA) served the respondents on Sunday.
The Thursday night deadline will require the Supreme Court registry to remain open until midnight so as to receive the response from the petition respondents.
IEBC Chief Executive Ezra Chiloba, however, assured Kenyans that their legal team would be complying with the set timelines after having already submitted to the court, all the originals of the presidential election result forms.
“We expect that by Thursday this week we’ll be filing our responses with regards to the petition,” he stated.
The petitioners (Mr Odinga and Mr Musyoka) have until 1 pm on Friday to file and serve their written submissions whereas the respondents; IEBC, Chebukati and President Kenyatta have until 7:00 pm Friday to file their written submissions.
The petitioners will then have until 9 am on Saturday to file and serve a rejoinder to the respondents’ submissions.
Any parties seeking to file an application in relation the petition have until Friday 1 pm to file and serve it together with written submissions limited to five pages with the same applying to parties wishing to be admitted to the petition as amicus curiae (Friend of the Court).
After all the parties have accomplished and met all the deadlines, the Supreme Court is expected to have a pretrial conference where rules of engagement shall be discussed.
