High court clears Wavinya Ndeti to vie for Machakos seat
The High Court has quashed a verdict by the electoral agency’s dispute resolution committee to lock out Wiper gubernatorial candidate Wavinya Ndeti from the race.
In his ruling, Justice George Odunga faulted the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s committee for not giving a ruling on whether Ms Ndeti moved to Wiper party after the deadline for party hopping had expired.
According to the judge, even though Ms Ndeti alleged party hopping is what was presented before him by IEBC, the commission itself had not dealt with it at that time.
The judge therefore ruled that if IEBC had dealt with that matter, he would have consequently declined to quash its decision against Ms Ndeti.
Justice Odunga went ahead to issue an order stopping the IEBC from implementing its June 8 decision that would have seen Ms Ndeti locked out of the gubernatorial race.
He has also ordered the IEBC to include Ms Wavinya’s name as the Wiper Party’s nominee for the Machakos gubernatorial election during the August 8 general election.
“Court has found that other issues raised before me as the basis for justification of the committee’s decision were not the grounds upon which IEBC made its decision,” ruled Justice Odunga.
He added: “The ground upon which it did so was as a result of the consideration of an irrelevant factor hence the decision was unreasonable.”