Rasanga elected Siaya Governor

Cornel Rasanga elected Siaya County Governor. (Photo:Standard)

By Lawrence Aluru

Siaya, Kenya:  For the Siaya County Returning officer to announce gubernatorial winner, the security personnel had to intervene before he finally delivered the results.

Benson Mughatsia announced to the crowd gubernatorial results from the constituencies before finally declaring that Cornel Rasanga Amoth with a total 142,901 while his close contestant William Oduol 133,900 votes.

Mughatsia had a rough time when he rose to address the crowd which became rowdy when they sought his audience before he could proceed.

An adamant Mughatsia went on to read the final report of the results that they had got from the six constituencies.

At first, there was calm in the county hall when other results were being announced then a commotion ensued in the crowd as results for Gem constituency were being read.

Oduol and his supporters tried to stop the county elections boss from announcing the gubernatorial post as they said that they were ejected from Sawagongo high school where Gem tallying were conducted.  

Apparently they had lost in Bondo, Rarieda and Gem where they were citing electoral malpractices while they managed to win in Alego, Usonga and Ugenya Constituency.

Oduol said that the delay to announce the results was a ploy to doctor the votes in favour of his opponent.

IEBC operations almost came to a standstill when his supporters brought commotion into the hall.

Siaya OCPD Stephen Cheteka and his team had to intervene for the County returning officer to announce the results.

Initially, Oduol had written to the IEBC chairman through the CRO to demand that the resultsto be announced and transmitted at the end of the voting exercise to the IEBC national tallying centre via electronic system.

He said that this was because ODM agents were allowed by the IEBC officials to buy voters in the precincts of the voting area.

Oduol went further to state in the letter that, “Gubernatorial position results announcement should be suspended pending a full audit of all the votes cast in all polling stations of the county.”  

He said that the returning officer in Gem permitted thugs, under the command of Jakoyo Midiwo to invade the tallying hall during the tallying exercise to forcefully eject him and his aides from the hall.

When The Standard spoke to Midiwo who is the MP elect for Gem, he said that he had only gone to attend to the announcement of the parliamentary seat for which he contested.

“Those are the kicks of a dying horse. He knows very well that my main intention is to get my own results how again do I create commotion?" Midiwo posed.

In Ugenya constituency, David Ochieng of ODM is the new MP elect after beating his closest rival Chris Karan of National Agenda Party of Kenya with more than 18,000 votes.

Rarieda has in the meantime retained Nicholas Gumbo to represent them in parliament in the next five years.

But Edwin Yinda met the wrath of the voters when his rival from the word go at the nominations Mr. George Omondi Muluan got the highest votes to represent the vast constituency in parliament.

While in Bondo Gedion Ochanda of ODM took the lead after defeating his closest rival Steve Scott.