Supreme Court halts Cyprian Awiti removal in Homa Bay

The Supreme Court has put on hold plans to declare the Homa Bay governor seat vacant.

The top court in the land has further restrained Homa Bay county assembly speaker from assuming the office of governor, pending hearing and determination of an appeal filed by Mr Cyprian Awiti.

2 RESULTS

Mr Awiti on Tuesday rushed to the pinnacle of the judiciary after the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the High Court nullifying his election.

Justices Philip Waki, Fatuma Sichale and Otieno Odek noted that High Court made findings of fact that there were flaws and irregularities in vote tallying.

The mistakes, the judges said, made the declared results indeterminate as to who the winner was.

During the hearing, the court found that there were two sets of results— making it difficult to know who the winner of the August 8 polls was.

However, the appellate judges said if that was the case, the High Court erred in law in holding that there were two sets of the poll’s outcome.

MAGWANGWA

“The law neither allows nor recognises two sets of results. There can only be one result that can be challenged or impugned in an election petition. This is the officially declared result,” they said, adding that the officially declared result is the outcome declared by the electoral commission.

Mr Awiti’s election was challenged by former MP Joseph Oyugi Magwangwa, who maintained that he won the election but was denied victory by IEBC.

So far, two other governors have moved to the Supreme Court after their elections were nullified.

They are Wajir Governor Mahamud Ali and his Machakos counterpart Alfred Mutua.