Chaos broke out in Gilgil town after two rival groups clashed minutes before the constituency results were announced. Two Jubilee rival groups exchanged blows before police moved in and whisked the election officer from Comboni hall in Gilgil during the Thursday evening incident.
During the melee, Gilgil MP Mathenge Nderitu grabbed the nomination certificate to the anger of her closest competitor nominated Senator Martha Wangari.
In the provisional results, Mathenge got 14,383 votes while Wangari had 14,031. The results had been delayed for close to six hours after tallying in one of the polling stations was stopped over irregularities. Several people were injured, three of them seriously, after police were overwhelmed by the surging crowds.
The anti-riot police dispersed the supporters of the two leaders and in the process, some of the voters were injured before the chaos poured out into Gilgil town.
Mathenge had declared himself the winner when chaos broke with the nominated senator contesting the results.
But according to Wangari, the results were not officially announced and blamed the returning officer for working in cahoots with the MP. She said it was clear that the returning officer Perminus Mungai had tactically delayed the results so as to favour the incumbent.
“This is very wrong and we will now move to the political parties disputes tribunal where we will lodge our complaints before deciding on our next move,” she said.
Flanked by her supporters, Wangari said she was the clear winner going by the results from her agents across the polling stations in the rural constituency.
Earlier on, Mathenge had contested the opening of one of the ballot boxes of Ngechu primary school saying it was illegal.
“Even though we do not agree with the votes in one of the centres, the opening of such can only be done by the tribunal or a court of law on the case of a general election,” he said.