County assembly nominees move to court seeking IEBC gazettement

By Isaiah Lucheli and JOSEPH MUCHIRI

Kenya: County Assembly nominees across the country have moved to court to compel the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to gazette them.

The nominees through lawyer Anthony Oluoch submitted that the continued running of the assemblies without the membership of nominees to special seats was in breach of the Constitution and election regulations.

 “Failure to gazette the nominees to the 47 counties as per the party’s list as amended by the IEBC Dispute Resolution Committee is unconstitutional, a breach of the law and against public and the petitioners legitimate rightful expectations,” they said.

The nominees drawn from Nairobi, Nyeri, Kajiado, Kitui, Meru and Machakos are seeking the court to declare the business and the legislative agenda of the county assemblies flouted the Constitution.

“We are praying for a declaration that the business and the legislative agenda including making and passing of county budgets and election of members of the departmental committees cannot be validly undertaken in the absence of the nominees,” said the petitioners.

The petitioners argue that the process of making the budget and allocations to the respective counties has been undertaken and concluded with incomplete county assemblies.

According to them, there was no provision in law for the court or any other party to restrain the gazettement or swearing-in of nominated county representatives and argued that once elected one can only be removed through an election petition.

“There is a danger and well-founded fear that the respondents may not meet the deadline for gazettement of the nominees for the special seats following efforts to restrain the gazettement as order by court,” they said.

The IEBC published a list of the allocation of nominees submitted by various political parties to the assemblies in the newspapers on April 20.

The National Gender and Equality Commission filed a petition and the High Court directed IEBC to constitute its dispute’s resolution committee to hear and determine all disputes relating to the allocation of nominees.

The suit will be heard today before Justice Isaac Lenaola.

Meanwhile, the High Court in Embu has ordered IEBC not to gazette four nominees to the Embu County Assembly.

Four members

This is until a petition filed regarding their legality is heard and determined.

Lady Justice Hedwig Ong’udi granted the application of four members of The National Alliance Party who have filed a petition to stop the gazzetement of the four, citing violation of the Constitution and the Political Party’s Act 2012.

The four petitioners include Martin Wachira Ngiri, Agnes Wanjiru Gakanguru, Catherine Wamuyu John and Ester Njeri Ngugi.

The petition was filed under a certificate of urgency with the petitioners citing that if their petition is not heard, the respondents will carry out their allegedly illegal move of violating the Constitution.