Migori governor Okoth Obado

Migori County Governor, Okoth Obado has won a petition in the Kisii appellant court contesting his defection from PDP without resigning.

The three Judge bench sitting in Kisii upheld his moving to the Orange Party even after riding to governorship in 2013 elections on a PDP ticket.

Petitioners George Obuya, Wilson Chacha and George Obonyo had argued that Obado’s desertion of his sponsoring party PDP, he infringed their constitutional rights by joining a different party.

The petition against the governor was filed in court on August 10 2016, but Obado moved officially to ODM on March 17 this year.

The bench ruled that Obado’s position just like the president, was executive and not legislative, hence it was not rendered vacant by his shift.

Reading the ruling, Justice Lady justice Wilfridah Okwanyi, for Justice Lady Mumbi Ngugi and John N. Onyiego dismissed the petition by the two ODM and one PDP party members for lack of demonstration that Obado’s move was in violation of their constitutional rights.

“The movement of a county governor from one political party to another is not one of the grounds the office of the governor can be rendered vacant,” said lady justice Wilfridah.

She said the office of the governor and president were meant to serve every resident in the county and nation irrespective of their party affiliation and therefore cannot be nullified for the said reason.

She noted the duties of the two offices were unlike those of the county assembly and parliament whose core mandate was representative or legislative, to support and propagate ideologies of their sponsoring parties.

The bench quoted article 104 which allows the electorate to call back their Members of parliament before expiry of term but not their governors.

The court stated that public interest and logic would militate that it’s not right to send the governor home since the general elections is only two month away after which the electorate will have a chance to elect a new governor.

“After all there are those who lost nomination ticket of their parties but are still in office waiting to hand over to the incoming leaders after elections,” said the court.

However the court noted politicians should have discipline in respect of those who elected them expecting them to uphold their party ideologies adding it was however toll order in our democracy to expect them to stop party hoping.

Obado who is the current ODM gubernatorial candidate risked being barred from defending his seat on the party ticket in the August elections if he had lost in the petition.

Speaking after the ruling, Obado’s advocate Roger Sagana lauded the court ruling saying it had interpreted the correct legal position on the respondent’s defection.

He said the bench had correctly interpreted the law band being the first determination of its kind, the court had set a good precedence.

Migori County secretary Christopher Rusana urged the area electorate to give elected leaders a chance to service them as opposed to antagonizing them through litigations.