Azimio la Umoja presidential candidate Raila Odinga, has requested that Wafula Chebukati, the chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission (IEBC), abstain from presiding over the upcoming gubernatorial elections in Mombasa and Kakamega.
Speaking in Mombasa while addressing ODM leaders and supporters who had come to support ODM Mombasa gubernatorial candidate Abdulswamad Nassir, Mr. Odinga suggested that Mr. Chebukati should abstain from the polls and that Juliana Cherera should take charge of them.
“He should disqualify himself from presiding over Mombasa and Kakamega polls,” he stated.
Ms. Cherera held her supervisor, Mr. Chebukati, responsible for the original suspension of the polls at a meeting on Monday with candidates from eight electoral regions where the elections were delayed.
Ms. Cherera abandoned the official script to bemoan the secrecy of IEBC procedures after being asked by Mr. Chebukati to explain to the candidates what caused the initial postponement.
Ms. Cherera insisted that the commissioners were not all speaking from the same script and claimed that some of the commissioners were purposefully kept in the dark about the printing of the ballots.
“We tried to put pieces together despite the fact that, as a commission, we didn’t even know the first ballot papers were arriving. We were only made aware on the night before the arrival,” she said.
