Governor Alfred Mutua dealt blow as election is nullified

Governor Alfred Mutua: He says he will appeal against the loss at the Supreme Court. [File, Standard]

Machakos County is headed for another election after the Court of Appeal nullified the August 2017 election of Governor Alfred Mutua.

His rival Wavinya Ndeti appealed against a High Court decision that upheld Mutua’s win.

“This is just a small hurdle. It is not going to kill my spirit,” a crestfallen Mutua said.

He added that he will still remain in office and discharge his duties pending the conclusion of the appeal.

Meanwhile, an ecstatic Wavinya said the victory was for the people of Machakos.

“He can go to the Supreme Court, I am going to Heaven,” Wavinya said.

Governor Mutua’s lawyer Alfred Nyamu said that the will file a notice of appeal at the Supreme Court. 

"The judges have misconstrued even the analysis of the law as it ought to apply....they forgot about the little man at the booth [voter]' Mr Nyamu said.

Mr Nyamu's view is that the election was wrongly nullified on the basis of a prescribed form in the declaration of results when Forms 37A had atatchments.

"The judges went academic and didn't look at  the High Court  judgement that had exonerated the governor, " said the lawyer.

Immediately after the judgment, the governor vowed to appeal on the grounds that the Court of Appeal did not indicate that he did not have the majority vote.

"This is part of the process that will take us to higher places,” said the governor adding that he will the 5th President of Kenya after the 2022 elections.

High Court ruling

On February 9, Justice Aggrey Muchelule ruled that the petition lodged by Wavinya Ndeti lacked merit and gave IEBC a clean bill for conducting free and fair elections.

He would order Waving Ndeti, the former Kathiani MP to pay Sh10 million in costs.

Ndeti had alleged that the Machakos governor's election was marred with irregularities and that IEBC erroneously declared Mutua the winner of the Governor seat.

Her case was that Governor Mutua used county resources including vehicles and funds to campaign for his re-election, contravening election laws and therefore wanted the court to nullify Mutua’s win and order a fresh election.
During cross-examination by Ndeti’s lawyer, Mutua had also denied claims he used county government resources to campaign.

“I was not responsible for appointing party agents; that was the party secretariat,” Mutua had told the court.

Mutua polled 249,954 votes against Ndeti’s 209,233 in the August 8 General Election. The Judge in his ruling stated that Wavinya’s petition lacked solid evidence thus throwing out the case against Mutua.