Chaos at Raila’s party offices
Democracy on trial.
Taita Taveta governor John Mruttu explains a point to Cord leader Raila Odinga as Wundanyi MP Thomas Mwadeghu.
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Supporters of Wundanyi MP Thomas Mwadeghu stormed Orange House demanding that the legislator be awarded the party’s ticket for the Taita Taveta gubernatorial position.
Mwadeghu told the media that he "won the elections straight and square" adding he will not participate in any repeat of the process.
"I am here with my supporters to pick my certificate because I beat Mruttu in the primaries," he said.
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During last week’s primaries, Mwadeghu led with 18,421 votes against the incumbent Taita Taveta Governor John Mruttu’s 15,911.
The exercise was temporarily halted because there was no voting conducted across five polling stations in the county.
Exercise suspended
ODM opted to suspend the exercise after the affected stations failed to hold the exercise following heavy downpour that hampered the transportation of election materials.
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Mwadeghu had vowed not participate in any other ODM nominations as he had “genuinely won” last week’s primaries.
“The election board must give me the certificate because there will be no nominations,” he said.
Mwadeghu demanded action be taken against the governor for allegedly hiring goons to disrupt nomination preparations causing a delay in delivery of voting materials to various centres in the county.
Double-standards
However, Governor Mruttu accused ODM National Election Board of applying double standards in solving grievances between him and his opponent Mwadeghu.
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Mruttu also said last week's results were unsatisfactory as the voting process in some areas started late due to delay in delivery of materials and this may have tilted the results in favour of Mwadeghu.
In Mwadeghu’s own constituency of Wundanyi, the MP garnered 4,417 against Mruttu’s 3,628.
In Taveta, Mruttu garnered 5,112 votes while Mwadeghu got 1,181 voters.
In Voi, Mruttu garnered 3,950 against Mwadeghu 4,197 votes while in Mwatate, the governor polled 3,221 votes against the MP’s 8,626.
Mwadeghu hails from the dominant Taita community while Mr Mruttu is from the Taveta area.
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