Tribunal slaps down Wanjigi allies’ bid to stop ODM meet

Political Parties Disputes Tribunal has refused to cancel the planned national delegates convention of the ODM party, dealing a major blow to businessman Jimi Wanjigi who was challenging its legality.

The tribunal, chaired by Desma Nungo, yesterday struck out an application filed by a group of party officials allied to Wanjigi seeking the cancellation of the meeting on grounds the organizers failed to comply with the party’s constitution.

The tribunal ruled that the petitioners led by John Mworia Nchebere did not table evidence showing they had exhausted all the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) before they sought for the tribunal’s intervention to address the issues at the party as required.

“In our view, we find that the matter by the complainants before our jurisdiction was premature invoked. The preliminary objection by the ODM Party is merited and upheld.

The application by the petitioners is struck out,” ruled vice chair Wilfred Mutubwa who read the decision on behalf of the tribunal members.

ADR mechanisms

Nchebere and other party members were faulted for rushing to the Political Parties Dispute Tribunal forum without giving ODM enough time to address the issues in the letter dated February 9 through ADR mechanisms.

The tribunal noted ODM party was served with the letter on February 17 and barely 24 hours later the petitioners moved to the Tribunal denying the party opportunity to as much as read the letter and internalize their concerns.

The petitioners had sought to cancel the top party’s organ meeting of February 25 and 26 claiming 1,230 bonafide delegates were not invited.

They had also sought an order for chairman John Mbadi and Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna to withdraw the notice issued on February 4 convening the meeting

Through lawyer Willis Otieno, they accused the party of failing to include the nomination of the flag bearer as one of the agendas to be discussed during the meeting.

They also wanted the party to be compelled to reopen its nomination process for the presidential flag bearer within the next 21 days.

But ODM through lawyers James Orengo and Jackson Awele had objected to the request to have the NDC meeting cancelled as it was not an opportunity to address the issues before the members invoked the tribunal interventions.

Awele informed the Tribunal that the application is meant to achieve collateral political adjectives using the court processes.