Uduaghan Wins Delta Guber Re-run

Details: Category: Politics; Published on Friday, 07 January 2011 19:13; Written by Admin; Hits: 1052

Dr. Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) has won the rerun governor's election in Delta state, officials announced on Friday, in a vote seen as a major test ahead of April's nationwide polls.

Uduaghan Officials announced that the candidate whose previous election was annulled won on Thursday. An electoral commission spokesman said the election appeared to be fair despite reports of violence.

"Dr Uduaghan, having satisfied the requirements of the law and scored the highest number of votes, is hereby declared the winner," electoral commission official Gabriel Ada told a news conference.

The election in Delta state came after a court invalidated the result of the 2007 vote following fraud allegations and ordered a re-run just months before a new ballot. Uduaghan had been governor before the court ruling deposed him.

His main challenger in the re-run, Great Ogboru of the Democratic People's Party, finished with 138,244 votes compared to Uduaghan's 275,253, Ada said.

Ogboru earlier alleged supporters were barred from voting and some of his party's poll agents were arrested. "People were shooting sporadically into the air and chasing people all over the place," Ogboru told reporters.

A spokesman for electoral commission head Attahiru Jega said the vote provided lessons for April's presidential, legislative and state polls.

The recently installed electoral commission faces huge challenges in organising April's elections in Africa's most populous nation, where vote violence and rigging have frequently occurred.

"The election on the whole was fair despite isolated incidents," said Jega spokesman Kayode Robert Idowu.

The commission is not pretending that the election was crisis-free. The chairman made clear there were cases of violence, there were cases of ballot snatching ... but on the whole, the election was credible."

Police reported two arrests in connection with attempts to steal ballot boxes. Other suspected ballot thieves who were armed managed to escape, said Delta state police spokesman Charles Muka.

Authorities deployed massive security for the vote, which occurred after a series of attacks in recent weeks, including bomb blasts in the capital Abuja and the central city of Jos.

The Niger Delta region has long been hit by unrest involving criminal gangs and militants claiming to be fighting for a fairer distribution of oil revenue. Election rigging has also frequently occurred there.