By-election for Kairuku

By Gregory Avira DWU journalism student

EDUCATION Minister Paru Aihi has been removed as a politician after the court of disputed returns nullified his election. The businessman-cum-politician has become the second MP to lose his seat to a successful petitioner. Presiding Justice David Cannings ruled on Monday that the Kairuku-Hiri MP distributed K6500 in cash to various people with a view to bribing the recipients, and ruled in favour of the petitioner and Kairuku-Hiri open seat runner-up Peter Isoaimo.
“A reasonable person would have regarded his real intention as being to buy votes with K6500 cash. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that that was indeed his real intention and that he acted with criminal intent: the first respondent was distributing the cash in order to induce the recipients and the villagers generally to endeavour to procure his return at the 2012 general election and to procure the votes of the electors at the election,” said the judge.
Mr Isoaimo had alleged Mr Aihi committed the offence on two separate occasions, one at a volleyball tournament at Vanapa village on June 2, 2012 and the other during a visit to Veifa’a village on May 26, 2012.
Justice Cannings dismissed the first set of allegations due to insufficient evidence, but found there were sufficient grounds to support the second set of allegations levelled against Mr Aihi.
“I find that the distribution of that money was a planned exercise, intended to enhance the standing of the first respondent in the eyes of the villagers, including the electors, at Veifa’a. The Vanapa volleyball tournament allegations are unproven. However, substantial parts of the Veifa’a allegations have been established in that it has been proven that the first respondent committed the offence of bribery.”
The Electoral Commission will now conduct a by-election for the vacant Kairuku-Hiri open seat in Central province, unlike the Ambunti-Drekikir open seat in the East Sepik province in which petitioner Tony Aimo was declared MP after the court ruled incumbent Ezekiel Anisi too young to run for public office.