Tuesday August 15, 2017
Mandera Governor Ali Roba and his wife Hodhan Ibrahim during a meeting at Nyayo National Stadium on July 2 / JACK OWUOR
The Economic Freedom Party Mandera governor candidate, Hassan Noor, has rejected the results.
Governor Ali Roba of Jubilee Party retained his seat after garnering 67,470 votes against Noor’s 57,937.
Noor claimed the electronic voting system was tampered with to give his rival undeserved victory.
The former Rift Valley provincial commissioner alleged JP interfered with the Kenya Integrated Electoral System especially in his Lafey and Banisa strongholds.
“There was delay in transmitting the results. Voting was also delayed,” Noor said.
“EFP clinched four out of the six National Assembly seats and 15 out of the 30 county assembly seats, which means we are popular in the region,” he added.
Noor addressed the press in Mandera town on Sunday, flanked by outgoing Senator Billow Kerrow. Noor asked his supporters to remain calm as he took the petition to court.
Outgoing Mandera Senator Kerrow claimed it would have been a clean sweep for the party, had it not been for the “cruel subversion of the will of the people in Mandera North by the IEBC and Jubilee surrogates in Mandera”.
He went on,”The poll was a sham and a massive fraud. We suspected votes would be stolen but we were not prepared for ‘sanctioned robbery.”
He, however, thanked Mandera voters for upholding the peace.
Former county assembly speaker Abdikadir Sheikh of PDR and Husseinweytan Mohammed of JP, who were running for the Mandera East seat, said the election was marred by malpractices.
Sheikh displayed 10 ballot papers he claimed were found dumped in Arabia that had been cast in Mohammed’s favour.
The candidates claimed poll officials were working in cahoots with their opponents.
The candidates asked their supporters to remain calm as they took the case to court.
Omar Hassan of EFP clinched the Mandera East seat with 11,440 votes against Mohammed’s 8,472 and Sheikh managed 6,119 votes.