The Court of Appeal has nullified the election of  George Wanjohi as Mathare MP and ordered fresh polls. Wanjohi was declared winner by the IEBC a day after ODM’s Stephen Kariuki had been declared as validly elected MP for the semi slum constituency.
After a thrashing defeat by Kariuki at the constituency level, Wanjohi rushed to IEBC headquarters and using tactics which continue to baffle everyone, got a certificate. In this particular election, IEBC gave two certificates for the same seat and later revoked the certificate it gave to the ODM MP.
In September, the High Court had upheld the election of George Wanjohi as Member of the National Assembly for Mathare constituency.
Justice George Kimondo had ruled that Mr Wanjohi was validly issued with the winner’s certificate and dismissed a petition by Stephen Kariuki claiming that the electoral commission had violated the rules by announcing two separate winners.
Justice Kimondo ruled that although IEBC violated the law by issuing Mr Kariuki with a certificate and later revoking it, the grounds raised were not sufficient to nullify Mr Wanjohi’s victory.
“There was irregularities in issuing a certificate to Mr Kariuki before all the votes were tallied but that was cured by issuing a new certificate to Mr Wanjohi after the returning officer re-tallied the votes and found Mr Wanjohi leading with a margin of 346 votes,” said Justice Kimondo.
The judge also ordered Mr Kariuki, the son of former Starehe MP Margaret Wanjiru, to pay Mr Wanjohi Sh2 million as costs of defending the petition.
Mr Kariuki then moved to the Court of Appeal.