 |
| CORD leaders Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka adressing a rally in Migori Sunday, after attending the homecoming of Suna West MP, Mohamed Junet. |
By Stanley Ongwae
Migori, Kenya: Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has accused the Jubilee government of interfering with the Judiciary.
He said Kenyans would not sit back and watch theJudiciary being “rendered dysfunctional”.
Speaking in Migori town, Raila at the same time maintained that the Bill which has been passed in Parliament asking President Uhuru Kenyatta to form a tribunal to investigate the Judiciary was “null and void” as it was not supported by any section of the Constitution.
“Kenya has three arms of government and they are all independent from each other,” Raila said adding that the Executive or the Legislative arm could not pretend to control the Judiciary.
While admitting that not everything was okay in theJudiciary, Odinga insisted that trying to reform it through the presidency or the Parliament was unconstitutional and should not be allowed.
He was speaking after the homecoming party of Suna West MP Mohamed Junet at Migori Municipal Stadium at a function attended by over ten CORD legislators. Governor Okoth Obado and his deputy Mwita Mahanga did not attend the function.
At the same time, Odinga hit out at Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi accusing Parliament of turning “rogue” and urging Muturi to stick by the powers accorded him by the law and not to try and assume powers he did not have.
He further criticised the recently passed Bill seeking to regulate the media industry, saying Kenyans has freedom of speech and information as well as media freedom and nobody could take them away.
He was supported by former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka who warned that Kenyans will not allow the rights they have fought for over the years be taken away within months of the Jubilee leadership.
Disband IEBC
“Media rights have to be respected because it is there that we get to know what happens in the country,” he said. He added that after curtailing the media rights, “the Jubilee government had now set its eyes on the civil societies”.
Yesterday, Raila also revived calls for the disbandment of the electoral commission, whose four officials have been charged with corruption over procurement of equipment for the last polls.
Raila said the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) should prosecute top officials of the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) over conduct of the March 4 General Election.
“Singling out some top officials whom the anti-corruption commission found answerable to some questionable mistakes will not be enough if they (the Government) cannot disband the entire commission for them to regain the trust of many people,” he told a rally in Migori.
Raila and Kalonzo Musyoka called for the reconstitution of the electoral body claiming that Kenyans didn’t have confidence in the present team conducting the next General Election.
The former Premier, who contested the presidency on a CORD ticket, challenged the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta in the Supreme Court but his petition was dismissed.
Although Uhuru’s election was upheld, Raila has kept up the pressure on the IEBC, which he accuses of bungling the electronic system of identifying voters and transmission of results.
When the Supreme Court threw out Raila’s presidential petition last April, the judges led by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga recommended that electoral commission officials be investigated and those who may have been involved in impropriety during the procurement of poll kits worth Sh1.3 billion prosecuted.
Total overhaul
IEBC chief executive James Oswago and three other senior officials have already been arraigned in court. Others are Wilson Shollei, deputy commission secretary in charge of support services, Edward Karisa, director of finance and procurement and manager Willy Kamanga. They have all denied the charges.
The charges relate to a controversial contract awarded to Face Technologies Limited for the supply of Electronic Voter Identification devices. IEBC Chairperson Ahmed Isaack Hassan is listed as a witness against commission officials who were suspended after they were charged in court.
Raila claimed the credibility of the commission had been tainted and only a total overhaul could restore public faith in the body tasked with overseeing elections. The government, he said, should be held responsible for not removing all IEBC officials from office.
He accused them of being responsible for irregularities that the Supreme Court pointed out while delivering the verdict on the presidential petition.
No comments:
Post a Comment