High Court throws out poll petition

By Pamela Chepkemei

Nairobi, Kenya: High court has struck out a case filed to stop the tallying of votes from the presidential election.

Three High Court judges held they have no juridiction to entertain a case on presidential elections saying only the supreme court can deal with it.

The petition filed by the Africa Centre for Open Governance at the High Court in Nairobi (Africog) sought to stop the tallying of the presidential votes which is nearing the end at the Bomas of Kenya.

The case was filed on Thursday evening and the Chief Justice Willy Mutunga appointed three judges on Friday morning to hear it.

High Court Judges Isaac Lenaola, David Majanja and Weldon Korir directed that they would have to first make a decision on whether they have the jurisdiction to handle the case.

The NGO's lawyer, Harun Ndubi applied to have the judges issue orders stopping the tallying of votes but the court refused.

Ndubi said they wanted the court to direct the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to obey the law and correct the anomalies in the vote tallying process.

“There are many  identified  irregularities  that will undermine  the integrity of the  results  including tallying  of non-verified  presidential ballots yet there is uncontroverted evidence of many constituencies having  a turnout of more than registered voters,” said Mr Ndubi.

IEBC had objected to the case arguing that it should be determined at the Supreme Court.

“This dispute should be dealt with by the Supreme Court,” said IEBC lawyer, Mr A. Nyamodi.

 The Jubilee Coalition whose Presidential candidate is Uhuru Kenyatta had also objected to the case being heard at the High Court.