Kenya: Court Upholds Mutula Kilonzo Junior Election's Victory

1 March 2023
Capital FM (Nairobi)

Makueni — The Makueni High Court on Tuesday upheld the victory of Makueni Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jr in a ruling delivered by Justice John Onyiego.

Onyiego ruled that Governor Mutula was validly elected and dismissed the petition filed by former Kibwezi West MP Dr Patrick Musimba.

"There was no prove that the fundamental process was not followed so as to render the results invalid," said Justice Onyiego

The court found that the issues raised by Musimba did not warrant a nullification of the gubernatorial results announced by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) during the August 9 2022 elections.

According to IEBC, Mutula won the seat by garnering 214,088 votes against his close rival Musimba who got 63,252 votes.

"I did not find evidence that the use of manual voting affected the results. In fact, Kibwezi West Constituency that voted manually had a higher voter turnout of 58.61 percent against Kibwezi East Constituency 57.2 where there was no failure of Kiems kits," said Onyiego.

The court ruled that the marginal difference of voter turnout in areas that used Kiems kits compared to the affected 140 Kiems kits that failed in Kibwezi West Constituency was negligible and inevitable.

Justice Onyiego directed Musimba to pay Sh3 million for the cost.

Speaking after the ruling, Makueni Deputy Governor Lucy Mulili noted that the will of the people has been validated.

"We are happy that we won the election. The case is behind us and now we are forging forward to continue working for the people of Makueni," noted Mulili. - Kna

Read the original article on Capital FM.

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