Ole Sakuda was declared winner of the nomination exercise held last week with 16,130 followed by his only challenger, Parsimei, who got 1, 677 votes. Photo/File.
NAIROBI, Kenya, August 20- The National Alliance (TNA) party on Monday maintained that its Kajiado North parliamentary seat nominee Moses Ole Sakuda had won fairly in last week’s nominations and vowed to present his name to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) despite a court order barring them from doing so.
The party’s Secretary General Onyango Oloo told journalists that the party had not been served with the court order and was therefore not aware of it.
“We have been hearing and reading that issue in the press, up to now we have not been served with that court order, we do not know how to respond to it and we do not know the basis on which it has been preferred to court. As and when it comes, we will tackle it, as of now we are on the campaign trail and Sakuda will be on the ballot box for Kajiado North on The National Alliance party ticket,” Oloo said.
Vacation judge Justice Alfred Mabeya on Friday issued the order after an aggrieved candidate Francis Gitau Parsimei moved to court to stop the nomination of Ole Sakuda, citing irregularities during the nomination.
Ole Sakuda was declared winner of the nomination exercise held last week with 16,130 (90 % of the vote cast) followed by his only challenger, Parsimei, who got 1, 677 votes.
Political parties are expected to present their nominees to the IEBC between Thursday and next Sunday.
Oloo maintains that the party’s nomination process for the vacant parliamentary and civic seats was free, fair and transparent.
“Of course we admit that like every process there must have been teething logistical problems but they are problems that largely did not affect the general will of the people who participated to elect their leaders. We have heard a few complains here and there, we do not wish them away, we take them seriously and we see them as an opportunity to improve the process in future,” he stated.
The party now wants those dissatisfied with the process and its outcome to lodge complaints to the party formally so that the issues can be addressed.
TNA party Chairman Johnson Sakaja said the candidates had a right to be heard as this would help in improving future nomination processes.
“The national oversight board which I chair will sit down, look at them, look at the memorandum they are sending in because we believe in continuous improvement but we have no doubt and I have full confidence in all the returning officers, presiding officers and all other officers who took part in this nomination that they did it to the best standard possible,” he assured.
Sakaja noted that the major concern that had been raised so far was to do with the voter register to which he explained that the party had decided together with all the candidates to use the party’s register as well as that from the IEBC.
“I remember from Kangema we submitted almost 45,000 members to the IEBC for them to give us a register segregated into polling stations. For Kajiado North we submitted in excess of 33,000 names. When we received them (from IEBC), the Kangema register had 3000 members from a list of 45,000; we got back between 5 and 10 from Kajiado from a list of more than 33,000. Now, if we decided to have the nomination with that register only, we could have had a bigger mess,” he explained.
Yesterday, some nine presiding officers who participated in the nomination process addressed a press conference in Kangema where they alleged that the nomination process was manipulated to favour Tirus Ng’ahu who clinched the TNA ticket in the constituency.
The parliamentary by-elections for Kangema, Kajiado North and Ndhiwa constituencies are scheduled for September 17.
The seats fell vacant after the deaths of John Michuki (former Environment Minister), George Saitoti (former Internal Security Minister) and his deputy Orwa Ojode.
About The Author
