Judge upholds Odege’s election victory

Nyatike Member of Parliament Tom Odege. [Photo by Wilberforce Okwiri/Standard]

Nyatike Member of Parliament Tom Odege has a reason to smile after a Homa Bay court upheld his election.

Justice Joseph Karanja ruled that Mr Odege was validly elected in last year's August 8 General election.

In the petition, Odege’s main rival, Fredrick Ogenga, who contested as an independent candidate, had argued that the election was marred by irregularities and wanted the election nullified.

The judge yesterday said Mr Ogenga’s petition lacked adequate evidence to prove that the MP was not validly elected.

On December 12, Mr Karanja ordered a recount of votes in 53 polling stations in Nyatike constituency.

The vote recount indicated that Odege had 10,222 against Ogenga’s 9,923.

Yesterday, the judge argued that the petitioner failed to prove that the errors and irregularities he noticed were so grave that they could affect the final election results.

"This was proved by the fact that even if the recount was to be extended to polling stations whose results were not substantially disputed, there would have been no significant impact on the final results,” said Karanja.

He argued that the recount was the only way to ascertain that Odege was not validly elected.

The judge dismissed the petition and ordered each party to meet their own costs.