By James Omoro in Ndhiwa
The Orange party is on the spot after the nominations for its candidate in Ndhiwa constituency ran in trouble amid claims of violence and vote rigging.
ODM nominations which started late in some polling stations closed at about after 5pm and tallying went on late into night before Augustino Neto was declared a winner reportedly having garnered 4,277 votes.
Interestingly, there was no mention of how other candidates polled in the hotly contested ticket which attracted 23 candidates among them the Mary Ojodeh the widow of Orwa Ojodeh whose death in a helicopter crash on June 10 occasioned the by-election.
Pockets of violence were reported in some polling stations as those aggrieved called on the party headquarters to order fresh polls.
The returning officer Elias Keton declared Augustino Neto the winner of the nomination exercise at Ndhiwa multipurpose Hall at about 5am.
The losers threatened to go to court to seek cancellation of results.
They claimed the exercises was marred with vote rigging and dogged on delayed in some areas thus giving rival undue advantage.
Yesterday, a crowd of 200 people had turned to cast their ballot but was delayed at the school as they protested the act arguing the exercise was marred by malpractices.
Some the aspirants alleged that the nomination process was derailed intentionally and aimed at giving the nomination certificate to an favoured candidate.
Tom Okong’o an election coordinator who expressed his astonishment as to why voting kits were delayed in some polling stations in time.
There are 148 polling stations and nomination officials were using the IEBC list of registered voters from the past records inherited from ECK.
