Raila Odinga announces the establishment of peoples’ assembly

NASA leader Raila Odinga addressing the media at Okoa Kenya offices in Nairobi on Tuesday 31/10/17 [photo/Boniface Okendo,Standard]

NASA leader Raila Odinga has announced establishment of peoples’ assembly, a broad based forum to discuss issues affecting Kenyans.

The people’s assembly will be a forum of elected leaders, members of the civil society and religious leaders who will be discussing issues affecting Kenyans and pass resolutions that can be debated in county assemblies.

Raila insisted October 26 election was shambolic and could not meet a threshold of free, fair and democratic process. He said it’s important for the electoral body to conduct credible elections in order to restore voters’ confidence in future elections.

“The sham election will render useless the historic Supreme Court ruling that annulled the August 8 presidential election. On the eve of the election, we saw the ominous signs of Uhuru’s threat to ‘fix the problem in the Supreme court’ when the court failed to raise quorum to hear a case challenging legality of the election,” Raila said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Nairobi.

Raila emphasized that President Uhuru Kenyatta will be in office illegitimately because he was not democratically elected.

 “A president who is elected in an election that does not comply with the constitution cannot legitimately and constitutionally exercise authority on behalf of the people. If the election is allowed to stand, the highest office in the land will be occupied by a person who has usurped power,” Raila said.

The NASA leader challenged IEBC on voter turnout, saying only 3.5 million registered voters participated in the October 26 repeat election, contrary to 7,483,895 as declared by Chairman Wafula Chebukati.

“The IEBC Chairman initially announced a figure of 48 percent which translates to 9.4 million but on realizing how preposterous that was, revised it downwards to 6.55 million which translates to 33 percent. Many observers find even this figure optimistic. IEBC then embarked on manufacturing turn out to show that Uhuru Kenyatta has popular mandate,” he said.

He wondered why no action has been taken against Kandara MP Alice Wahome for violating electoral laws.

“What input did the MP want to add in an election result where there was no contest? It can only be to inflate the voter turnout. We have evidence that such “inputs” were provided in several Jubilee strongholds,” he said.

According to Raila, parliament has been rendered ineffective under the Jubilee Government as it’s being used as a rubber stamp by the executive.