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Lodwar High Court dismisses application by Munyes on vote re-count

Presiding judge Justice Stephen Riech, disallowed the application, on grounds that the same was made after parties had closed the hearing of the petition filed by Munyes/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 27 – The High Court in Lowdar has dismissed an application by John Munyes seeking a re-count and audit of votes cast in favour of Turkana Governor Josphat Nanak.

Presiding judge Justice Stephen Riech, disallowed the application, on grounds that the same was made after parties had closed the hearing of the petition filed by Munyes.

The judge said that the petitioner ought to have made such an application for a recount during the pre-trial of the petition he filed challenging the election of Nanok.

“All evidence from parties were tendered and closed on 5 December 2017 in respect of election petition filed by Munyes,” he said.

The court, consequently upheld the submissions of lawyer Philip Nyachoti appearing for the governor to the effect that application for scrutiny, tallying of votes was made in bad faith.

The court said that the order for scrunity ought to have been included in the main petition, to allow the court to direct for preservation of election materials.

He said that from the submission of the governor’s counsel, it was clear that the pleadings of the petitioner asking for a recount, audit and tallying of votes cannot be granted

Nyachoti had informed the court that the petitioner from his original petition had indicated he was not interested in knowing numbers of votes cast in respect of Turkana County Gubernatorial position.

“The petitioner had only sought the court to make a determination over election process, violence, bribery and misuse of government resources by the governor” the court heard

He told the court that, those allegations were not proved by the petitioners witnesses and agents, saying that he was only interested on three polling stations.

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The lawyer did submit that, it is a general principal of law that parties are bound by their pleadings, he only sought an order for by-election.

The application appears to be new election petition the petitioner, has now included 117 wards from Turkana North, East 6, Central 15 Loima Constituency 5 which were in the original petition.

The application for scrutiny were also opposed by IEBC and its returning officer George Oyugi on similar grounds that the petitioner has brought new materials which were not contained in his petition.

During the August 8 polls last year, Munyes and Nanok were the only two candidates for the Gubernatorial Election of Turkana County.

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