Final ruling sought in Khalwale poll petition

An application by a petitioner challenging the election of Ikolomani MP Boni Khalwale was heard on Tuesday.

In the application, the petitioner Bernard Shinali is seeking a summary judgment on the grounds of admitted facts in the petition.

Mr Shinali argues that an inspection of documents ordered by the High Court last month had shown that there were glaring discrepancies which affected the outcome of the poll.

The petition is before Kakamega resident Judge Mr Justice Isaac Lenaola.

Lawyer Stephen Mwenesi for the petitioner told the court that the inspection of the forms 16 A and 17 A had brought out strong grounds to prove that the conduct of the election in Ikolomani and results were an illegality.

He said the court should proceed to deliver a ruling in favour of the petitioner since evidence had shown that the Electoral Commission of Kenya had failed to comply with the election rules as set out in law.

The lawyer said ballot boxes from seven polling stations did not have forms 16 A on which the results are recorded while several ballot boxes had broken seals.

Mr Mwenesi said anomalies were detected during inspection of documents from Matundu polling station which indicated that the number of voters who turned up was higher than registered voters at the station.

He said results in the the gazette notice for Mr Khalwale showed he got 8286 while the tally of votes in 17 A for the MP was 8537. The figures differed with the results entered in words on form 17 A which showed the MP got 8886.

The lawyer said his client had narrowly lost to the MP by 265 votes and it would only fair for the court to invalidate the results because of the irregularities.

The Judge is expected to deliver a ruling after lawyers representing the MP and the Electoral Commission of Kenya have responded to the application by the petitioner.