POLL RESULT MISSING

The results have been missing since the Electoral Commission of Kenya called off the tallying of votes in December 2007 after chaos erupted.

And the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) is now distancing itself from irregularities associated with the ECK in the constituency.

Through lawyer Stephen Adere, the IIEC said it was taking a neutral position in a petition challenging the election of Simon Mbugua as Kamukunji MP.

Chaos erupted at Shauri Moyo tallying centre when ECK officials had completed tallying results from 135 out of the total 157 polling stations. The constituency had 25 parliamentary candidates.

The ECK then called off the tallying prompting Mbugua, the PNU candidate, to move to court. He successfully sought orders to have the ECK compelled to complete the process.

In August 2008, the court quashed the decision to call off the tallying and ordered the ECK to complete the tallying and announce the winner.

Mbugua was declared winner with 22,614 votes while Ahmed garnered 16,604 votes and third candidate Abdi Yusuf Hassan got 7,663.

Ahmed immediately filed a petition challenging Mbugua’s victory.

In a report prepared in 2008 and used in all the court cases, the returning officer Pricilla Wamiru said they would have completed the tallying were it not for chaos.

She, however, argued that Mbugua would still have won if all the results were received, given his performance in the other polling stations.

Mbugua has made several bids to have the petition struck out.

In his latest application filed through lawyer Kibe Mungai, the MP argues that the petitioner did not include in the court papers the results for all the 25 candidates as required by law.

He is relying on a case in which the Court of Appeal struck out a petition against Naivasha MP John Mututho since the petitioner Jane Kihara had not included the results for all the candidates.

But Ahmed is challenging the requirement that he should produce the results of all the candidates. He says the ECK never made the results available to him.

Lawyer Adere told presiding judge Kalpana Rawal that even the available results had not been countersigned by party agents as required under the electoral law. He said the IIEC had an explanation for the missing results.

But lawyer Mungai has strongly contested the IIEC’s neutral position in the matter saying the commission has been sued alongside his client.

Kibe says the commission should either oppose the petition or concede and opt out of the case.

Hearing continues.