Munya ruling gives hope to other defendants

The reinstatement of Mr Peter Munya as Meru governor by the Supreme Court on Friday now gives hope to other embattled governors and MPs.

The Supreme Court is still seized of six other election petition cases but a section of lawyers yesterday said there was no sign the Supreme Court was willing to deviate from the decision of 2013 presidential election petition.

The six cases were filed by governors Evans Kidero (Nairobi), Nathif Jama (Garissa) and Okoth Obado (Migori), as well as MPs Silverse Anami (Shinyalu), Fred Outa (Nyando) and Lemanken Aramat (Narok East), all who moved to the Supreme Court after their March 2013 victories were quashed by the Court of Appeal.

The lawyers, Prof Ben Sihanya and Haroun Ndubi yesterday faulted the Supreme Court judges of overreliance on trivialities instead of addressing the constitutional issues raised by the Court of Appeal. 

“The Supreme Court ignored the constitutional issues that were raised and instead focussed on rules and regulations, scrutiny and ways of adducing evidence. They asked themselves a wrong question and answered the wrong question and avoided the question of irregularity. A free and fair election should be both in quality and quantity,” said University of Nairobi Law School’s Prof Sihanya. 

Mr Munya got his seat back after the Supreme Court set aside the earlier ruling of the Court of Appeal that had nullified the governor’s March 4, 2013 victory over former Education assistant minister Kilemi Mwiria. 

In quashing the Court of Appeal ruling, the full bench of seven Supreme Court judges presided over by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga argued that the earlier decision was premised on a wrong principle of electoral laws. 

But Prof Sihanya and lawyer Ndubi, who represented civil society activists Gladwell Otieno and Zahid Rajad during the presidential election petition, held that it was the Supreme Court that had got it wrong by ignoring the glaring credibility issues.

According to Prof Sihanya, the Supreme Court judges ended up drafting a manual for elections meaning that the pending petitions will fail.

“They have just endorsed the ruling in the Raila presidential petition granting the IEBC the freewill to do as it feels and get away with it,” he said. 

SUPREME COURT CRITICISED

According to Mr Ndubi, the Supreme Court is not bound by its previous decisions and could have seized this opportunity to rectify any mistakes made during the presidential election petition. 

“The Supreme Court is being unfair to the country on how they interpret the question of elections. It is a contest between the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal where the latter is correctly interpreting the Constitution but the former, instead of setting jurisprudence on elections is adopting a casual manner that they applied at the presidential election petition,” said Mr Ndubi.

“What the Supreme Court is saying in both the presidential election petition as well as the one of Munya is that if the petition is based on the manner the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) conducted the elections the incumbent will retain his seat. This is bad because in future people will manipulate and steal elections and the losers will have no recourse,” Mr Ndubi added. 

But a petitioner, Mr Ferdinand Waititu said the ruling in the Munya case will not dampen his resolve to ensure justice is done. The former Embakasi MP, who had challenged Dr Kidero’s victory, said he was hopeful the Supreme Court will uphold the Court of Appeal ruling that nullified the city governor’s election. 

“No, it does not dampen my spirits. These are two different cases,” said Mr Waititu. 

Meanwhile, the reinstatement of Mr Munya as Meru governor is likely to renew rivalry between him and MPs in the region.

Mr Munya has been at loggerheads with a majority of the MPs from the region accusing them of playing cheap politics instead of concentrating on developing their constituencies.

A majority of the MPs were in favour of Dr Mwiria (TNA) in case a by-election is called. Six MPs led by Mr Mithika Linturi had called for joint nomination of candidates vying under Jubilee. Others were Mr Kubai Kiringo (Igembe Central), Mr Joseph Eruaki (Igembe North), Mr Rahim Dawood (North Imenti) and Mr Mpuru Aburi (Tigania East).

But the election talk has now been muted.

Mr Dawood and his South Imenti counterpart Kathuri Murungi as well as Meru Woman Representative Florence Kajuju yesterday welcomed the ruling and said it was an opportunity for the governor to bring together the Meru leadership.

“The court has ended the anxiety in the county and this is a good opportunity for Mr Munya to bring all elected leeaders together for faster development,” Mr Kathuri said.

Ms Kajuju said all elected leaders should galvanise their support for the county leadership to help better the livelihood of the electorate.

“Personally, I will fight for the allocation of more funds for the counties and once the money is allocated then we expect that it is used prudently for the benefit of the wananchi,” she told the Sunday Nation on telephone.

WORK TOGETHER

Members of the County Assembly (MCA) - who pride themselves as the real power-wielders at the devolved units, have asked MPs to work together with the county leadership.
Nominated member Alhaji Mwendia cautioned MPs to keep away from county matters.

“There are constitutional mandates for each and every elected leader. I am asking MPs to concentrate on their mandate and abstain from attacking the county leadership for no apparent reason. Let them refrain from attacking MCA’s and the governor,” Mr Mwendia said, adding that they had nothing personal against the governors.

He said they will continue working with the governor for the sake of peace and economic development.

Mr Munya said he will continue with the development projects that the county government had initiated prior to the court battles.