President Uhuru Kenyatta. [Photo/the-star.co.ke]
The unprecedented Supreme Court annulment of the August presidential election was quite a blow to President Uhuru Kenyatta and his legal team.When petitions challenging the validity of the October rerun were filed at the apex court, Uhuru's team knew all too well that they needed to adopt a smart strategy to convince the court to uphold the president's re-election.The first step of this smart strategy was reconstituting the legal team that represented IEBC, resulting in the replacement of the eloquent PLO Lumumba and Paul Muite with Waweru Gatonye and Kimani Muhoro.After the reconstitution of their teams, the lawyers burnt the midnight oil scrutinizing the petitions with a view to establishing the key issues.When the petitioners sought to convince the court to order the IEBC to avail some documents, the respective legal teams acting for Uhuru and IEBC argued successfully that IEBC could not be forced to produce the documents on the grounds that time would not allow,In court, Uhuru's top lawyer mounted a robust argument that Raila Odinga did not withdraw from the presidential election in a manner that satisfied the law.On the question of whether the rerun met the dictates of the law, Uhuru's and IEBC's lawyers argued convincingly that it did.''It was a clear reflection of the people's will in spite of the low turnout.