This is how my votes were stolen in August polls, Nyeri MCA candidate tells court

There were disparities in some of the figures registered in Form 36A of the Thegu-River ward seat in Kieni, a court has heard.

United Democratic Alliance (UDA) candidate Simon Mwangi who is challenging the election of Mr Patrick Wachira told Nyeri Senior Principal Magistrate James Macharia that four out of the 18 polling stations whose results he is disputing results, recorded mistakes in the document.

Testifying before the court, Mr Mwangi raised concerns over the errors by the presiding officers in Chaka Primary School Polling Station 5, Karundas Secondary School Polling Station 1, New KCC Ground Chaka Polling Station 2 and Ngatha Nursery School.

At Chaka Primary, he said the presiding officer miscalculated the total number of votes cast recorded on Form 36A.

The document indicated that the total valid votes cast for the nine MCA candidates were 227, yet a manual counting of the number of votes cast for each candidate, done during the court session, showed that the total votes ought to have been 327.

 At Karundas Secondary, Mr Mwangi told the court that the presiding officer recorded 309 as the total number of valid votes cast. However, after counting each candidate’s votes, the number summed up to 308.

“This was also the situation at Ngatha Nursery School where the indicated total number of valid votes cast also differed with a count of each of the nine candidates,” he said.

Rejected votes

Besides the miscalculation claims, the former UDA candidate also noted another disparity at the New KCC Ground Chaka Polling Station 2, which showed that there were 18 rejected votes in the Form 36A, yet the presiding officer’s remarks showed that there were no rejected votes recorded.

During the court session, the petitioner also accused the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and the new MCA Patrick Wachira of blocking his political agents from 16 polling stations and issuing extra ballot papers to voters at others.

In supporting the claims that his agents were chased away from the polling stations during the counting of votes, Mr Mwangi presented a political agent who was representing another different candidate before the court.

In his testimony, Mr Simon Gitonga, an agent affiliated with The Service Party (TSP), told the court that during the counting of votes at the Maragima Primary School Polling Station, there was a commotion outside the premises caused by MCA Wachira’s supporters.

The mob wanted the petitioner’s agents chased out of the polling station accusing them of trying to steal votes.

“This saw the three agents at the polling centre representing the petitioner taken away by the police,” Gitonga told the court.

Because of their absence, he said that he noted some disparities in the way the MCA votes were counted.

But during the court session, the electoral agency through lawyer Elizabeth Karanja disputed Mr Gitonga’s evidence as a witness saying that it could not be relied upon since he could not be verified as an agent.

Lawyer Karanja said that Gitonga’s name was not recorded in the Polling Station’s Diary, yet it was a requirement for all political agents and observers to register their names with the electoral agency once they got to their respective stations.

“Further, the witness has not provided a letter of appointment from the political party that he alleged to represent to prove that he was indeed an agent at the polling station,” said the lawyer.

On his part, MCA Wachira’s lawyer Teddy Kaburu told the court that the mistakes recorded by some presiding officers in Form 36As were rectified in Form 36B.

“Therefore, they did not in any way interfere with the final results as announced,” he said.

MCA Wachira won the ward seat garnering 3,282 votes followed by Mr Mwangi who had 3,126 votes.

The case continues.