Raila wants Aukot included in October 26 repeat presidential election

Thirdway alliance party presidential candidate Ekuru Aukot

Opposition leader Raila Odinga has supported Ekuru Aukot’s application for inclusion as a presidential candidate in the fresh poll slated for October 26.

The National Super Alliance (NASA) presidential candidate, although named as a respondent in the case, replied that the Supreme Court nullified the entire presidential election and thus all the candidates who participated ought to be in the re-run.

“In the event the determination and the Constitution presupposes that all persons who participated in the nullified presidential election of August 8, 2017 did not, in the eyes of the law, participate in the said presidential elections at all and are accordingly entitled to the opportunity offered by the constitution within the meaning to do so in the upcoming presidential election now scheduled for October 26, 2017,” replied Raila.

 The former Prime Minister through his lawyer Jackson Awele eplained that the gazette notice by Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) defining the race  to be between him and  President Uhuru Kenyatta is invalid for failure to include the other candidates.

IEBC on the other hand is opposed to the case by the Thirdway Alliance candidate and it argues that the Supreme Court in 2013 ruled that a fresh election ought to be confined to the person who sues and the President-elect.

All the remaining candidates who did not contest the election of the President-elect, according to IEBC, are assumed to have either conceded defeat, or accepted the results as declared.