Court urged to block IEBC report
A politician has moved to court seeking to restrain the electoral commission from adopting the report on boundaries it released on Monday.
On Thursday, Mr Kiiru Mwangi, a parliamentary aspirant for Kiharu constituency in Murang’a County argued that the report did not reflect the interests of many Kenyans.
He further stated that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s report was authored by the defunct Interim Independent Boundaries Review Commission and therefore, not a compilation of the IEBC.
The petitioner insists that the preliminary report bore the abbreviation IIBRC and urged the High Court to compel the electoral commission to conduct its own public hearings as required under the law.
“It is a matter of public knowledge that IEBC has not conducted any public event on boundaries,” Mr Mungai said.
The plaintiff is asking the court to restrain IEBC from wholly or partially relying and adopting the Ligale report as “the singular and exclusive source material in the process of delimitation of boundaries and wards.”
The court is expected to make a ruling on Friday. This came even as Kieni MP Nemesyus Warugongo accused the electoral commission headed by Mr Isaack Hassan of failing to give his constituents a new electoral area they had asked for.
The legislator said the defunct IIBRC team led by Mr Andrew Ligale that prepared an earlier survey on boundaries, did not explain why it turned down their request.
However, the IEBC had said the constituency could not be split any further as it had other restrictions.
In their request, Kieni residents had proposed that two more constituencies be extracted from Mathira and Laikipia East constituencies to ensure the new ones had the required population.
The IIBRC based the new constituencies on the requirements of the Constitution and a population of 133,000 per constituency.
In Nakuru County, a section of activists faulted the IEBC report, saying the proposed boundaries would isolate certain members of the same community.
“We want the IEBC to address the plight of minority communities in Rongai that are being isolated by pushing various parts of our constituency to be annexed to neighbouring constituencies of Subukia, Njoro, Molo and Nakuru Town,” said political activist Peter Mbae.
Seek legal redress
Nyandarua politician Stephen Mburu Kinyanjui (from Kinangop) said he would seek legal redress if the commission implemented the proposals.
Mr Kinyanjui said residents were angered by the commission’s proposal that four wards be hived off from Kinangop to neighbouring Kipipiri.
“We want the commission to know that we read an ulterior motive by having all our proposals rejected only to hive off key wards from the constituency to another whose residents did not ask for extra wards or reorganisation,” Mr Kinyanjui said in Naivasha.
Reported by Eric Wainaina, Richard Munguti and Simon Siele
