Mohamed Ali suffers major blow after ODM’s new ruling

dennis kibet

May 3, 2017 10:20 AM

ODM Director of Elections Junet Mohamed has made a stinging final verdict.

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Former KTN investigative journalist Mohammed Ali has suffered a major blow in his quest to become Nyalis next Member of Parliament.

The ODM National Elections Board (NEB) in its latest ruling has upheld the victory of Said Abdalla, alias Saido, as the party nominee for the Nyali MP seat.

Saido is the brother to Mombasa governor Hassan Joho.

Speaking to the media, Director of Elections Junet Mohamed said that Saido was the bona fide ODM candidate for Nyali MP.

“The party national elections board has rejected Jicho Pevu’s appeal against his political rival,” Junet said.

During the ODM Nyali primaries, Saido garnered 3,671 votes against Ali’s 2,987 votes.

Massive irregularities

However, Ali immediately rejected the results citing massive irregularities and last week successfully appealed to the party’s National Appeals Tribunal.

Ali disputed the results saying there was an elaborate plan executed by Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho’s brother that eventually saw him “rigged out” of the party primaries.

Ali complained that the whole nomination exercise was massively flawed and skewed in favour of Abdalla.

The Tribunal later ruled that there were irregularities which may have impacted on the results of the elections.

"The nomination exercise conducted in Nyali Constituency did not meet the threshold of free fair and credible elections as envisaged in the party constitution and rules," the statement from the tribunal said.

Following the latest ruling by the party’s NEB, it now remains to be seen if Ali will contest the Nyali parliamentary seat during the August elections as an independent candidate with the deadline fast approaching.

The Elections Act requires aspirants intending to contest as independent candidates to submit their names and symbols to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commission for approval by August 8.

dennis kibet