Moses Wetang’ula (left) with Cord leader Raila Odinga on January 12, 2016. He will know his fate on January 20. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL
Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang’ula has told the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission not to delete his name from the voters register “because it would be against the rules of natural justice.”
Mr Wetang’ula told a special committee of the Commission that he feels he has already been punished by the litigation.
“No politician in this country, since Independence has been dragged and dragged through the mud of an electoral cycle the way I have,” he told the committee chaired by commissioner Thomas Letangule.
“And if it is going to be crowned by taking away my rights to vote, to be voted for or to do anything attendant to being a voter or to be voted for will be, to say the least, the height of inexplicable and unjustifiable injustice to any individual.”
The Bungoma Senator who is also the opposition Cord co-Principal argued the Supreme Court, despite agreeing with lower courts that he had committed an electoral offence, quashed the earlier ruling disqualifying him from taking part in future elections.
Earlier, lawyers representing Mr Wetang’ula, led by Siaya Senator James Orengo, asked the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) not to bar him from elections, arguing that it would be wrong to punish the Bungoma politician for an offence the courts would not convict him on.
“He has not been convicted of an election offence, (and) hence he cannot be barred. You can commit an offence, but you have not been convicted of that offence,” Mr Orengo argued.
The IEBC Committee will now deliberate on his arguments before deciding his fate on January 20.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
