Disgruntled woman rep aspirants threaten to field independent candidate
From left, Nominated MCA Neddy Kiptoo, Bernice Kitum, Dr Elizabeth Keitany, Caroline Ngelechei and Christine Kibet who contested for the UDA ticket for the Elgeyo Marakwet Woman Rep seat in Thursday's primaries. The aspirants have disputed the nomination results which declared current Woman Rep Jane Kiptoo as the winner and want a repeat exercise.
Five aspirants for the Elgeyo-Marakwet woman representative’s seat eyeing the UDA ticket have demanded a rerun of the nominations or they would field one among them as an independent candidate.
They claimed Thursday’s polling was marred by massive irregularities and vote manipulation and urged the party to nullify the results and conduct fresh primaries.
Incumbent Woman Rep Jane Kiptoo was declared winner in a race that attracted nine aspirants.
The final results showed that Ms Kiptoo garnered 25,324 votes and Caroline Ngelechei 19,177. Nominated MCA Neddy Kiptoo secured 10,974 and Christine Kibet 10,285.
At a press briefing in Eldoret on Sunday, Ms Ngelechei, Ms Kiptoo, Ms Kibet, Bernice Kitum and Dr Elizabeth Keitany demanded fresh nominations for the position, noting that the process was not free and fair.
They said they would name a compromise candidate to face Ms Chebaibai in the August 9 elections if the party doesn’t consider their grievances.
“We are going to give direction to our supporters. As of now, we have already agreed on the candidate and we will be presenting the name in due course,” Ms Kiptoo said.
Imposing leaders
They alleged a few individuals were imposing leaders on the women of Elgeyo Marakwet.
She added: “There were a lot of issues. We don’t know what each one of us got in each of the sub-counties. The tallying of the results took more than 24 hours while in some cases some votes were swapped at the tallying centre.”
Elgeyo Marakwet County Woman Representative Jane Kiptoo during a security meeting at Tot in Kerio Valley, on January 31, 2022.
The aspirants observed that although they were loyal to UDA and party leader Deputy President William Ruto, they wanted its officials to re-examine contentious primaries.
“There are those who claimed they built the party from scratch and can commit injustices against others. But we are saying that we also did build the party by contributing Sh250,000. The party belongs to the mwananchi, who deserves to elect the right leaders,” they stated.
They claimed that there were telltale signs before the primaries that the process would be interfered with and it came to pass.
“How sure are we that if we go to the tribunal we will get justice when some of those who presided over the process failed to listen to our grievances,” Ms Ngelechei said.
Exorbitant complaints fees
They also regretted that the fees for lodging complaints at the party’s tribunal are exorbitant and discourages complainants from seeking justice.
“For one to file a complaint for the seat of woman representative, they need Sh100,000. As women, we cannot afford the amount,” Ms Kitum said.
“We feel that since those who were at the grassroots level failed to listen to us, we will not get a fair chance.”
She added that vote tallying for the woman rep seat was not fair as the results were delayed while those for other positions were released much earlier.
