Anne Waiguru's victory contested

Anne Wauguru PHOTO:COURTESY

Anne Wauguru’s victory in the just concluded Jubilee party nominations is being contested by her rivals who want the results nullified.

Kirinyaga governor Joseph Ndathi and Kirinyaga Central MP Joseph Gitari have lodged separate appeals to the party citing what they term as massive irregularities.

Waiguru, the former Devolution Cabinet Secretary, was declared winner of gubernatorial nominations after scoring 100,632 against Gitari’s 46,678. Ndathi was third with 17085.

However in two cases filed on Friday, the two said there was massive irregularities and ballot stuffing with the country recording an ‘abnormal’ turnout for the governorship contest.

Both Ndathi and Gitari say they have collected evidence to prove the malpractices and cite a major discrepancy between the total number cast for senator and that of governor.

“The total vote in Kirinyaga county for senator was 90,000 while governor tally was 171,000; meaning 81,000 voters went got to the polling station, voted for governor and did not bother voting for senator,” Gitari’s application reads in part.

He added; “We have some people ready to confess that they voted more than once especially in Mwea constituency (Ngurubani primary school) where voting was done at night.”

The MP accuses Ms. Waiguru of compromising election officials and wants her victory nullified and results for Mwea and Gichugu cancelled.

On his side, governor Ndathi wants the nominations be declared null and void and a determination that Waiguru has not been legally nominated as the JP candidate.

He accuses the JP party election officials of allowing non-registered members of the party to vote while his supporters were denied right to cast their ballots at 11 centres due to shortage of ballot papers.

“The appellant avers that numerous instances of huge discrepancies in the total number of votes declared by election officials is inexplicable upon any reasonable hypothesis other than the existence of the actual ballot stuffing, multiple voting or gerrymandering or inflating of the number of votes in tallying to the advantage of Waiguru,” Ndathi’s affidavit through A. N. Ndabiri law firm reads.