Blow to Alfred Keter as tribunal upholds UDA decision
Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter.
Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter has suffered a blow after the Political Parties Disputes Tribunal upheld decision of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party to revoke his victory in the recent primaries.
The tribunal found there was no merit in Mr Keter’s complaint, which sought quashing of the party’s decision to award the nomination certificate to his rival Bernard Kitur.
In the ruling rendered by the tribunal presided by Stephen Ligunya, PPDT endorsed the decision of the UDA National Elections Board.
It dismissed Mr Keter’s claims that the Board had erred in fact and law by overturning his victory in the primaries where he garnered 10,333 votes against Mr Kitur 7,468 votes.
The Board nullified the victory upon finding that the April 19 nomination exercise was marred with irregularities such as ballot stuffing and violence. Hence, Mr Keter’s win was irregular.
In his complaint, the MP said it was wrong for the UDA Board to hold that Mr Kitur proved the allegations to the required standard of proof.
“The Board erred in holding that the agents and representatives of Mr Keter forcefully stormed various polling stations and physically assaulted Mr Kitur’s agents and locked them out of polling stations,” said his lawyer Ediwn Saluny.
He added that the Board had made legal blunders by nullifying Mr Keter’s victory despite there being overwhelming evidence that he won and there was no dispute of the votes he garnered save for three polling stations out of 100 stations.
The lawyer further faulted the Board for failing to hold that the results from the three polling stations –Soiyet primary school, Lengubei and Kaboswa –did not substantially affect the outcome of the nomination.
This is because if all the votes in the three stations were to be given to Mr Kitur, Mr Keter would still have emerged the winner with a clear margin.
