UDA: Teargas at Emgwen tallying centre, returning officer leaves for Easter Church service

A screengrab from a video of the April 15, 2022 chaos at Emgwen tallying centre in Nandi County.

Chaos rocked the Emgwen tallying centre in Nandi County on Friday, April 15 after UDA aspirants accused each other of rigging the polls.

A section of the aspirants seeking MP seat alleged ballot stuffing.

They said voting ended as late as 9pm on Thursday, April 14, and that despite all the ballot boxes being ferried to the county tallying centre almost immediately, at 3am Friday several vehicles arrived with marked ballot papers.

As a result, several ballot papers were destroyed on Friday morning by enraged youth.

Tallying of election outcome at the Christian Industrial Training Centre (CITC), Emgwen was suspended in the morning after the returning officer left the centre, saying he’s going for Good Friday church service.

Police were forced to use teargas to disperse the clashing groups.

Twelve (12) aspirants are eyeing Emgwen parliamentary seat on the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) ticket.

These are Oscar Kipkoech, Wilfred Bungei, Teresa Maiyo, Rose Chepchumba, Zipporah Kurgat, Meshack Kimutai, Raymond Kiplimo, Job Kibiwot, Josses Kosgey, Joel Kipkosgei, Paul Rotich and Tecla Chebet.

The Standard reached Gabriel Tongoyo, who is UDA’s Nandi County Elections Coordinator, for comment.

Tongoyo, the current MP for Narok West Constituency, said action will be taken against aspirants who sponsored the chaos.

The lawmaker, at the same time, said he’ll seek for time extension to have all the votes tallied correctly.