Kibaki and Raila meet over constituency row
What you need to know:
- Politicians release new list that seems to amend the earlier one Ligale team prepared
Two high-level meetings were held on Monday at the President’s Office in a bid to break the deadlock over the controversial creation of new constituencies.
President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga held a meeting on Monday evening in what government insiders say centred on the new constituencies whose creation has caused a storm in Parliament.
The meeting took place as Parliament’s committee on Justice and Legal Affairs prepares to meet on Tuesday to discuss the final report which was presented to them by Mr Andrew Ligale, the Independent Boundaries Review Commission chairman.
Mr Ligale presented the report on Friday evening as the commission’s mandate ended. Interestingly two different lists detailing boundaries and names of the 80 new constituencies proposed by the team emerged at the weekend.
The first one is similar to the one earlier released by the commission. The boundaries were also given.
However, on Saturday evening, shortly after Mr Ligale’s afternoon news conference, another list was circulated selectively to journalists by some well-connected politicians as the final report.
It shows a re-organisation of Nairobi’s constituency boundaries with two newly created constituencies hived off Mr Odinga’s Lang’ata and cabinet minister Fred Gumo’s Westlands to Dagorreti and Embakasi represented by PNU ministers Beth Mugo and Ferdinand Waititu, respectively.
The proposed Nairobi-West has been scrapped in the latest report to be replaced by Kawangware hived off mainly from Dagorreti. It will comprise Katina, Kilimani, and Kawangware wards.
Similarly, Parklands which was to be hived off Westlands has been scrapped in the latest list to create a new constituency in Embakasi known as Umoja.
It will constitute Umoja 1, Umoja 11, Kariobangi South and Harambee, hived off Makadara. This gives Embakasi area five constituencies; Embakasi (Imara Daima and Kwa Njenga wards), Kariobangi (Kariobangi North and Dandora Area 1 to Area 4) and Mihango (Embakasi, Savanna and Mihango wards).
