Big win for Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru as court throws out Karua case

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Martha Karua challenging the election of Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru.

The judges ruled that the appellant has to prove her case beyond reasonable doubt on claims that there was bribery in the gubernatorial election last year.

“There was no prejudice suffered by the appellant in failure by Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to produce the Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIMS) kit,” the ruling read by Justice Gatembu Kairu said.

The court had however noted that the appeal raised matters of law and therefore rejected submission by Governor Waiguru and IEBC that the appeal was not properly before them.

According to the Appellate judges, Waiguru’s legal team did persuade them that the judge was biased in rejecting the application for recusal.

They further ruled that the High Court erred in law by limiting the appellant from using forms that were in possession of IEBC.

In June this year, the the Kerugoya High Court dismissed Karua’s petition challenging the election of Governor Waiguru.

Judge Lucy Gitari threw out Karua’s petition on grounds that it lacked merit and ordered her to pay costs amounting to Ksh.5million.

Ms. Karua then moved to the Appeal Court a week later to challenge the decision.

She vied for the Kirinyaga gubernatorial but lost to Waiguru who garnered 153,353 votes (53,87 per cent).

Karua got 116,626 votes (40.97percent) while the previous Governor Joseph Ndathi garnered 4,496.