NAIROBI, Kenya, April 5- Three voters have petitioned the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party, accusing it of clearing Caroli Omondi to contest for the Suba South parliamentary seat after the stipulated time.
Omondi is a former Chief of Staff to Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga and he vied for the Suba South Parliamentary seat in the past election but lost to incumbent MP John Mbadi.
In a petition addressed to the party’s National Elections Board (NEB) Chairperson Catherine Mumma, the three voters Henry Ogolla, Michael Otieno and Joash Osodo argue that Omondi quit the party after the 2017 general election and if at all he rejoined, it must have been past the March 26 deadline.
“Without any further communication from the party to the public and its members in particular, the party has breached its own deadline by at least 10 days and on 30th March or thereabout, allowed Mr. Caroli Omondi to apply for and make payments to participate in primaries for the party’s candidate for member of Parliament for Suba South Constituency,” they said in the petition filed through Viola & Onyango Advocates.
They further pointed out that by March 16, only 8 candidates had been cleared by the National Elections Board to participate in the primaries and Omondi’s name was not among them.
Aspirants in the contest include Kennedy Omollo, Tom Arwa Kituka, Stephene Sangira, Julius Opala, Maren Ochieng, Lucy Achieng, Evance Marieba and John Angili.
“Opening up the application for Mr. Caroli Omondi to participate in the ODM primaries when he failed to beat the Registrar of Political Parties and Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s deadline of 26th March 2022 to be a member of a political party and also failing to beat the deadline of 16 March to submit and pay for his application to contest the party ticket is illegal, irregular, discriminatory and unconstitutional,” the petition read.
They called on the party to disqualify Omondi from participating in the upcoming party primaries within 48 hours failure to which they will seek legal redress.
One of the aspirants, Stephene Sangira said that in the ODM nomination rules, for one to be eligible to be a candidate, he must have been a member of the party for at least 6 months before the date of the primaries.
“The only exclusion is where the National Executive Committee, via a resolution excuses one from this requirement, which has not been done, so Caroli is a stranger in ODM, since he was a member of DAP-Kenya until a few days ago,” he said.
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