I am eligible for top seat race in 2017: Moses Wetang’ula

Senate Minority Leader Moses Wetang’ula

NAIROBI: Senate Minority Leader Moses Wetang’ula has denied reports that he could be locked out of the 2017 presidential elections owing to an earlier court case that reportedly found him culpable of bribing voters.

Mr Wetangula, who is Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) co-principal, said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) carried out investigations as directed by the courts, and concluded there was no sufficient evidence to incriminate him.

It is on this same basis that Wetang’ula said he was allowed to participate in the Bungoma senatorial by-election.

“The judge of the High Court in Bungoma purported to say I bribed some priests during the 2013 General Election campaigns. Immediately after, the same judge issued a ruling saying he had not barred me from vying and that is why I ran in the by-election after my election had been nullified,” explained the senator.

Wetang’ula was responding to an article in our sister paper, The Standard on Sunday, about his dilemma following the Supreme Court’s decision on the matter.

The senator, who is also Ford-Kenya Chairman, claimed the story had been written after his declaration to vie for the presidency in 2017, with a view to pulling him down. The article appearing in the paper, however, accorded Wetang’ula’s lawyers an opportunity to react to the story.

While political players allied to former Cabinet minister Musikari Kombo, who challenged and lost to Wetang’ula in the last two senatorial polls, claim the senator is not eligible to run in 2017, Wetangula’s lawyers think otherwise.

His lead lawyer in the case James Ochieng Oduol maintains his client is eligible to run as the DPP cleared him of the bribery charges.

His colleague, Johnson Masinde, explains the only disconnect lies in the fact that the Supreme Court was not aware that the DPP had expedited the case.

After the by-election in November 2013, explains Masinde, the registrar of High Court wrote to the Speaker of the Senate and DPP saying that bribery had been established and requested the DPP to investigate the allegations.

According to his lawyers, after going through the report by the CID boss, the DPP closed the file.

The case has generated a lot of political excitement within the CORD fraternity, and in his western region backyard.

Wetang’ula hopes to wrestle it out with former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, for the CORD presidential flag bearer ticket.