Court revokes nomination of ODM candidate over botched primaries

The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) will not field an MCA candidate for Utalii Ward in Ruaraka Constituency in next week elections.

This is after Justice Jessi Lessit ordered Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to degazette ODM’s candidate for the ward elections.

In the judgment she delivered on Tuesday morning, Justice Lessit directed the electoral body to remove the name of Wilson Ongele Ochola as the party’s candidate for Utalii Ward.

Lessit further noted that since IEBC has already printed the ballot papers and considering it is less than one week to the elections, she will not direct the party to conduct fresh nominations.

“The result of this judgment will be that the ODM party will suffer the inevitable because Ochola’s name which had been forwarded to IEBC for the position of MCA is revoked,” Lessit ruled.

In the case, Ochola says he was duly nominated as the ODM candidate during the nominations that were held in March this year.

He claims that he emerged the winner with the a total of 1,241 votes against Abel Osumba Atito who garnered 1,238 votes.

However, Ochola claimed that the presiding officer declared Atito the winner and issued him with a certificate.

They moved to the party’s county appeals tribunal, which fined Atito Ksh 200,000, an amount that was to be paid within seven days.

The matter was later taken to the Political Parties Tribunal, which ruled in favour of Ochola who is the current MCA.

The parties then moved to the High Court and the party was then directed to conduct fresh nominations.

However, ODM then opted to settle for Ochola as its candidate contrary to Court orders that led the case back in court.

Ochola said he will move to the Court of Appeal seeking to suspend the decision by the High Court pending the appeal.