A Nairobi Court has nullified the election of Gatundu North Member of Parliament on account of irregularities.
The Court was told that MP Anne Kibe Wanjiku was serving as a Member of County Assembly MCA by the time she was elected as an MP which was against the electoral laws.
Making a ruling on Wednesday October 7, Justice Weldon Korir noted that it was now upto the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission IEBC to declare fresh elections in the constituency, within the next 90 days.
Korir further asked Deputy Registrar to hand over the file to the Speaker of the National Assembly Mr. Muturi for an appropriate step.
The petitioner, who is the former area MP Clement Waibara took the current MP to court on grounds that the respondent was not fit and neither did she qualify for the job as per Article 99.
Records show that she managed to beat her close rival with over 30,000 votes after she garnered 39,447 votes against Waibara’s 9,390 in a contest that attracted a lot of attention from the residents.
Though she has a room to appeal, legal minds have argued that it will not be an easy exercise to challenge the ruling for the mere fact that the petitioner had proved beyond reasonable doubts that she did not qualify for the position.
Last June 2020, a three judge bench at the Court of Appeal returned back the case to the High Court for fresh judgment citing deficiencies in the previous ruling.
“The appellant has raised a new question for interpretation under article 105 (1) (B) of the Constitution that has not been determined by any competent court. We find that the trial court erred in equating the contest herein as being based on the validity of the election of Ms. Kibe,” stated the judges.
The case was to be determined in a span of six months.
