Former Devolution CS Anne Waiguru [PHOTO/nation.co.ke]
Anne Wauguru’s efforts to fly the Jubilee gubernatorial flag in Kirinyaga received a blow on Saturday after being disputed.
He rivals in the just-concluded primaries have emerged wanting the results nullified.
Kirinyaga governor Joseph Ndathi and Kirinyaga Central MP Joseph Gitari on Saturday lodged separate appeals to the Jubilee Party saying that she was involved in massive irregularities in the primaries.
The former Devolution Cabinet Secretary was earlier declared winner of the Jubilee gubernatorial nominations after garnering 100,632 votes against Gitari’s 46,678.
Third-placed Ndathi managed 17085 votes.
According to the two cases filed on Friday, the duo said they had evidence of ballot stuffing in an election where the county recorded what they termed ‘abnormal’ voter turnout for the governorship battle.
Both Gitari and Ndathi now say they have collected sufficient evidence to prove that the irregularities were done on the ground and add that a major discrepancy between the total votes cast for governor and senator points at their theory.
“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.
“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,” he added.
He further accused Waiguru of compromising poll officials and has requested that her victory be nullified and results for Gichugu and Mwea be cancelled.
In his part, Ndathi has demanded that Waiguru be denied the nominations certificate.
He said that the Jubilee Party election officials allowed non-registered individuals to vote and denied his supporters the same right across 11 centres due to what he said was 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,” read his affidavit filed through A. N. Ndabiri Law Firm.