Blow to Ruto as Obado loses Migori seat

Voters in Migori County and Nyando constituency will go back to the ballot after the Court of Appeal on Friday nullified the election of Mr Okoth Obado as governor and Mr Fred Outa as MP.

It was a double loss for Mr Outa as the court found him guilty of bribery.

His name was forwarded to the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission for action. Mr Obado, an ally of Deputy President William Ruto, is the only non-ODM governor in Luo Nyanza’s four counties.

Mr Obado is a member of the Omingo Magara-led People’s Democratic Party ,which entered a post-election cooperation agreement with the Jubilee coalition immediately after last year’s General Election.

The governor, who on Friday declared that he will contest the decision at the Supreme Court, has twice hosted Mr Ruto in his county, the last time on February 8 when the URP leader visited Kuria.

While the cooperation with Jubilee is viewed with suspicion by Mr Odinga’s supporters, Mr Obado has claimed he enjoys good working relations with the ODM leader as well as  the Deputy President.

His relationship with Ruto is said to have been cemented during their days in ODM, as well as when Mr Ruto was Agriculture minister and Mr Obado on the sugar board under his docket.

Three judges quashed Mr Obado’s win because of carelessness in data transmission by the electoral commission and another Bench quashed Mr Outa’s election due to use of public resources in his campaigns.

In the Migori case, Justices Onyango Otieno, William Ouko and Sankale ole Kantai overturned a High Court decision made on September 5 last year that upheld Mr Obado’s win in a case filed by his opponent Prof Edward Oyugi.

The judges faulted the way Lady Justice Esther Maina handled evidence with regard to tallying.

“We do not understand how the learned judge, having come to a categorical conclusion that the overall results were not accurate would make a 360-degrees turn to find that the election was free and fair,” they noted.

Prof Oyugi lost to Mr Obado by 163 votes. A recount ordered by the court saw the margin increase by 577 votes. But the constituency returning officer had produced a list showing that Prof Oyugi won by 379 votes.

On Friday, Mr Obado said the reasons given by the court in nullifying his election were baseless and that he would challenge the ruling at the Supreme Court. He denied that he had stolen the elections.

“I beat my opponent fair and square at the ballot. The evidence by the court was not credible at all,” he said.

On his part, Mr Outa (ODM) was found to have bribed voters using the distribution of the Constituency Development Fund cheques ahead of the March 4 election.

His opponent Jared Okelo (Ford Kenya) had told the court that Mr Outa gave out about 20 cheques of various amounts 10 days before polls.

The High Court had dismissed Mr Okelo’s evidence about the usage of the constituency funds as a campaign tool. But the Court of Appeal said Justice Aggrey Muchelule erred by ignoring the evidence of four of Mr Okelo’s witnesses.

“We find the timing of the release of the cheques before the election to have been deliberate to sway votes in his favour,” said Justices Philip Waki, David Maraga and Sankale ole Kantai.

Further, the court noted that Mr Geoffrey Yogo, who was Nyando’s CDF treasurer, campaigned for Mr Outa against the law. But judges noted, “technically he never committed any offence”.

“By getting (Mr Yogo) to sign his nomination papers as his supporter and to campaign for him, (Mr Outa) also committed an election offence of using public resources contrary to Section 66 of the Elections Act,” the bench said.

But Mr Yogo, a Kisumu-based lawyer, was let off the hook after the court observed that “technically he never committed any offence” and will thus not need to be reported to the DPP.

Because of the variation, the judges said the election did not meet the Constitutional requirements of being free, fair and verifiable.

“There were many breaches of the Constitution itself, the law and regulations. The breaches seriously affected the validity, legality and credibility of the results. Those breaches were unjust to the candidates, the electorate and did not inspire confidence in the general public,” they said.

The court rejected the electoral commissions’ defence that the errors were due to human error and said that such an excuse should not be used as a blanket defence for a carelessly conducted election.

“The explanation of human error is unacceptable and serves only as a reminder of our electoral system of yesteryears,” they said.