Munya indicated he would file a petition before the Supreme Court following the outcome/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 12 – The Court of Appeal has nullified the March 4, 2013 election of Peter Munya as Meru Governor.
Munya, who previously served as a Member of Parliament, immediately indicated that he would be petitioning the Supreme Court following the nullification of his poll win.
The petition was filed by a voter, Dickson Mwenda.
Justices Alnashir Visram, Otieno Odek and Jamila Mohammed said that the High Court in Meru failed to consider critical faults raised by the appellant.
They said that there was proof of multiple errors in the polls after tallying of votes, and as such Munya’s election did not meet the constitutional threshold.
Mwenda moved to the Court of Appeal arguing that the High Court erred when it ordered a scrutiny of ballot papers in only seven polling stations out of the disputed 82.
He also claimed the court denied him a chance to cross-examine the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and the Meru Returning Officer on the contents of defective Forms 35 and Forms 36.
Munya was declared the winner after he garnered 184,273 votes against former assistant minister Kilemi Mwiria’s 180,837 votes.
The three judge bench observed that that the margin between the winner and the runner-up Kilemi Mwiria was 3,436 votes which translates to 0.819 percent of the total votes cast on March 4, 2013.
Speaking after the judgement Mwiria said that it was clear that those who have the tendency of stealing votes in Meru will not dare again.
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