Nairobi Star (Nairobi)
Ibrahim Oruko and Hilton Otenyo
29 November 2011
The ODM election board has scheduled the repeat poll for Nairobi branch to Saturday and not today as initially announced. This follows yesterday’s decision by the national election board to nullify Sunday’s controversial election of George Aladwa as the chairman of the branch, in an election boycotted by his main challenger Starehe MP Margaret Wanjiru.
Secretary of the Board Joseph Misoi told the Star yesterday that the board and NEC had ordered the repeat after it emerged that the queuing system may not have been the best way to decide the winner. “The election was hotly contested and the standard of elections all over is that they are conducted through a secret ballot where there is tough contest,” Misoi said.
However, the order for the repeat poll was immediately dismissed by former Makadara MP Reuben Ndolo who termed the move as a “joke”. Ndolo called for the nullification of the election throughout the city because “no elections were held in Nairobi and thus the list of delegates used was fake”.
Ndolo said the problem was at the grassroots and claimed the decision to repeat polls at the branch shows some candidates were preferred over others. “There were no grassroots elections in Nairobi. People sat in hotels and drafted lists of delegates and presented them to returning officers. This is worse than Kanu,” Ndolo said.
But Misoi rejected the claim that there were no elections in Nairobi. “Complaints are part and parcel of election process,” he said. “The fact that one lost at the grassrootS does not mean that there were no elections.” Misoi said some of the complaints are exaggerated and not substantiated and warned party members against “extreme negativity” which he said Is dangerous to democracy.
Meanwhile in Kakamega county, a councillor yesterday stopped the ODM elections citing omission of delegates at a location in Shinyalu constituency. Jotham Nyamu, through Anziya and Company Advocates, served the county elections coordinator Geoffrey Nasiali with a court order twice to stop the polls that had been postponed from Sunday.
A process server arrived at Bukhungu Stadium, the venue of the elections moments before the voting began, and approached Nasiali who declined to be served and instead ordered for the process server to be thrown out.
Returning officer Innocent Oluku began the voting, but another process server accompanied by a CID officer arrived and confronted Nasiali with the court papers issued by High Court judge Said Chitembwe. Nasiali declined to be served instead referring the process server to the party headquarters. However the server read the order to him effectively serving it on the party.
Nyamu wanted the elections put off to allow delegates from Illesi location to participate in county polls. By the time the order was issued, all other seats had been filled except for committee members. Kakamega county council chairman John Shimaka beat former Medical Services minister Prof Amukoa Anangwe by 137 to 33 votes.
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