Even as KANU cried foul and accused the electoral commission of rigging the Kericho senatorial by-election in favour of the Jubilee Alliance Party, it has succeeded in one thing: showing that William Ruto’s hold on the South Rift region is shaky. The Deputy President knows Rift Valley is not his for the taking ahead of the high-stakes general elections next year.
The former ruling party rejected the results and promised to release a dossier detailing the irregularities it claims marred the election, won by a landslide by JAP’s Aaron Cheruiyot who polled 109,358 votes to beat Kanu’s Paul Sang who got 56,307. Even if it doesn’t have a strong case, it’s a way of the “rooster” party reasserting itself and seeking a bigger stake in elective politics.
Jubilee on Tuesday held victory rallies across the county to celebrate the win which was seen as cementing Deputy President William Ruto’s standing in Rift Valley politics. The by-election was hotly contested with the KANU team led by Baringo Senator Gideon Moi and independent-minded Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto, now viewed as politically wounded.
Even then, the impressive performance by the resurgent KANU has raised debate about the strength of the DP’s grip of the populous South Rift. Yesterday, Governor Ruto led other top KANU campaigners including Secretary General Nick Salat and MPs Oscar Sudi (Kapseret) and Johana Ng’eno (Emurua Dikir) in dismissing the results, saying they did not reflect the will of Kericho voters. These are the people William Ruto must watch and, if possible, tame to be assured of popular support in the region.
“We are disappointed with the manner in which IEBC conducted the election as they appear to have had a clear working partnership with JAP,” he said.
Mr Sang warned that the inefficiency of the electoral agency could plunge the country into mass rioting in the future. They questioned the transparency of the process, claiming that the returns were too high for an election in which the turnout was significantly low, ranging between 40 and 50 per cent.
Mr Ng’eno claimed that some of the results were announced before the counting was concluded at some polling centres. He said KANU would support calls to overhaul the polls team ahead of elections next year. “IEBC is on its deathbed and it has totally been exposed as a failure and should not be allowed to conduct the next General Election,” said Mr Ng’eno.
Governor Ruto said IEBC only published the votes on their tallying boards, without indicating the exact polling stations from where they were drawn. He also queried the “suspicious high speed” with the which the results were being released.
“It took the IEBC only three hours to count and tally votes for Kericho with 30 wards and many more hours to do the same in Malindi Constituency where only four wards were involved in the by-election. There is a problem somewhere,” said the governor.
They accused the electoral commission of having turned a blind eye to what they claimed were massive irregularities, allegedly including mass voter bribery by high-placed officials of the national government, officials of the provincial administration as well as heads of parastatals.
But as KANU complained over the process, Senator-elect Cheruiyot and other JAP leaders including Senate Majority leader Kithure Kindiki and his Deputy Kipchumba Murkomen had nothing but praise for the IEBC, saying it had delivered a free and fair election. (Additional reporting from Nation.co.ke) Image Source: The Star
