Busia governor’s poll petition: Court orders vote recount in 9 polling stations
Busia Governor Paul Otuoma (left) and former Nambale MP John Bunyasi.
The High court in Busia has ordered a scrutiny of the contents of ballot boxes in nine polling stations in a petition challenging the election of Governor Paul Otuoma in the August 9 polls.
The petition was filed by former Nambale MP John Sakwa Bunyasi who unsuccessfully contested the gubernatorial seat on an Amani National Congress ticket.
In the petition, Mr Bunyasi had asked the court to order the scrutiny, recount and nullification of the Busia gubernatorial election results, citing alleged massive rigging.
“Our prayer is for the court to authorise the IEBC to scrutinise and recount votes in all polling stations. We believe that there were irregularities including stuffing of votes in ballot boxes,” said Mr Bunyasi in documents filed in court.
Mr Otuoma won the governor’s seat on the Orange Democratic Movement party ticket. He garnered 164,478 votes while Mr Bunyasi got 92,144 votes.
On Wednesday, Justice David Kigen ordered that the scrutiny of the election materials including ballot boxes be conducted in Bumutiru RC, Elugulu trading centre, Esiunga, Elugulu, Namahindi, Bumulimba, Odiado and Busia township primary schools polling stations.
The scrutiny exercise should be conducted within the next seven days under the supervision of the deputy registrar who will thereafter file a report and hand it to the court before January 17 2023.
The judge has further directed the parties to file their submissions. The petitioner was given seven days to file the submissions. The court gave the petitioner leave to file supplementary submissions within three days.
The respondents will file their submissions within seven days of service by the petitioner.
The matter will be mentioned on January 17, 2023, to confirm compliance with the orders by the parties and the judge will then reserve a date for judgment.
The judge dismissed an application by the petitioner to file a supplementary affidavit and ruled that an application by the petitioner dated October 15 had been overtaken by events.
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