Jubilee Muguga Ward aspirant Githinji Mung'ara when he cast his vote at Kahuho Uhuru High School [Courtesy]

A section of Kiambu County local leaders have vowed to challenge Jubilee’s candidate Joseph Mung’ara Githinji’s win in Muguga Ward by-election.

They claimed there was widespread rigging, government interference, ID buying, ballot stuffing, invalidating of votes and bribery in an election that saw United Democratic Alliance (UDA) candidate Peter Kamau Thumbi, lose by 27 votes.

“We have enough evidence to show Thumbi won. We know where the problem is. We will present our evidence in court,” said aspiring Muguga MCA James Kinyati.

Without evidence presented to journalists, the leaders said much of the election malpractice took place when counting rejected votes.

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“It is shocking to note that after massive voter bribery, misuse of administration officers including uniformed chiefs and high level of voter intimidation," UDA secretary-general Veronica Maina tweeted.

"The Jubilee Party can demand a vote recount while knowing very well that on July 15, 2021, they did everything possible to try and unfairly sway results of Kiambaa Constituency and Muguga Ward by-election.” 

Alice Wangui Kamau, also an aspiring MCA, said that there is no way 110 rejected votes can belong to UDA.

“You know in Muguga, we are near Nairobi and therefore we have a big number of educated people. There was no way we could have had 110 rejected votes. We want the votes to be looked into again,” added Kinyati.

The leaders have also demanded that Thumbi withdraw his concession and congratulatory messages and also called on Kiambu Speaker to reject the elected MCA.

“We demand that our party and its leadership go to court and request a recount and verification of votes,” said Ms Kamau.

The decision to move to court comes a day after Jubilee Party also threatened to move to court over their loss in Kiambaa parliamentary by-election, which was won by John Njuguna Wanjiku.

The Jubilee MPs faulted the electoral process, saying there was rigging despite earlier congratulatory messages to the winner. 

The crisis meeting at the Jubilee headquarters at Pangani took stock of their performance.