Mombasa Governor, Hassan Ali Joho, will now have to wait for electoral body – the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to decide on whether he will be able to defend his seat or not in the August 8 General Election.
This is after the High Court rejected a bid by petitioner Abdalla Juma to have the court bar IEBC from clearing Joho by accepting his ODM clearance certificates for his direct nomination to defend the seat.
Justice Chacha Mwita says only IEBC can determine his qualifications and has ordered Juma to serve those mentioned in the case and appear in court on the 3rd of next month for further directions.
In the case filed at Milimani Court on Tuesday, April 11, the petitioner had sought to block IEBC from clearing the embattled ODM Governor to vie in the coming poll, claiming his degree was obtained fraudulently.
Juma further states in his petition that a candidate with a KCSE D- (minus) grade cannot qualify for admission to university or do a bridging course before joining a higher learning institution in the region.
“I am aware the first respondent – Joho publicly acknowledged he obtained a grade of D- (minus) in his KCSE examination in 1993 or thereabouts,” read the petition.
He argues that Kampala University has publicly alleged that it admitted Joho on the strength of credits transferred from the University of Nairobi where he had originally been admitted.
Juma is accusing the Nairobi University of failing to carry out due diligence prior to Joho’s admission.
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Let candidates contest and stop blocking candidates from running. Wananchi can read or hear what is going on with Joho and they know his shenanigans. But if you stop him from running, you will be like those countries who are run as dictatorships even though they say they are democratic. Let the public decide! Courts don’t need to be involved in whether a candidate runs or not unless he broke election laws. Come on, be real. What election laws did he break? Also, if the Gov. graduated from college and did well, let the man be! He is qualified one way or the other. This is dirty politics if you count him or anyone else out. If the guy made a D- on secondary school exams he was probably sleeping during the exam because he had studied so hard for the exam the night before that he couldn’t stay awake. It happens…but if he excelled in college then let it be. Be fair as you would want others to be fair with you. Let people disqualify candidates based upon their reputation and track record that has been revealed–not courts or government. Democracy means that people, not governments or courts should decide unless there is a major election law that has been broken or unless there is a deadlock on vote counts. But if you try to control elections this way by disqualifying candidates, well one would have to ask if that is democratic? Anyway, perhaps the real worry is that politics in Mombasa is based upon majoritarianism on the Coast. In that case, redistrict to include areas without any cultural representation at all but who need representation on the Coast–areas such as Taita areas, Migikenda areas, and there are many Kamba areas in Coastal as well as the Swahili people areas, among others–all these need to be represented since they conduct business on the Coast and live near the Coast, even if they don’t live in Mombasa but nearby in other areas adjacent to or along the Coastal area towards Tanzania and northward as well.