Governors, Cord step up push for referendum

What you need to know:

  • At the same time, Mr Paul Mwangi, who chairs the team of experts spearheading the Okoa Kenya push, said his team had finished compiling the final draft, which they would present to Cord MPs and senators next week.
  • “We have concretised our final draft, we now have an idea what we will take to the IEBC. What we want to do is to get a political reality check and that is why we are having a meeting with the politicians next week to get their views on the document,” Mr Mwangi said.

The Okoa Kenya and Pesa Mashinani referendum initiatives are set to finalise their respective draft Bills next week ahead of their presentation to the electoral commission next month.

Council of Governors chairman Isaac Ruto told the Nation that governors would hold a retreat with the team of experts working on the Pesa Mashinani draft Bill in Naivasha next week to fine-tune the final document before handing it over to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

“We ought to have had the retreat this week to put together the final document, but we had to postpone it following the death of Senator (Otieno) Kajwang’. We have now set the retreat for next week in Naivasha,” the Bomet Governor said.

At the same time, Mr Paul Mwangi, who chairs the team of experts spearheading the Okoa Kenya push, said his team had finished compiling the final draft, which they would present to Cord MPs and senators next week.

“We have concretised our final draft, we now have an idea what we will take to the IEBC. What we want to do is to get a political reality check and that is why we are having a meeting with the politicians next week to get their views on the document,” Mr Mwangi said.

He said his team would consult with the Cord political caucus that includes senators and MPs to iron out any contentious issues before taking the document to IEBC.

“Political consultations will start immediately culminating in the document being taken to IEBC. We are entering into the final phase of our task, which was to collect views and prepare the Bill,” Mr Mwangi said.

A MILLION SIGNATURES

Mr Ruto said the Pesa Mashinani initiative was almost hitting the “one million signature” mark set out in the Constitution.

“The last time I checked, we were almost hitting the one million signature target,” he said.

Mr Mwangi had earlier revealed the meeting with MPs and senators was necessary to address a number of clauses, which leaders had expressed reservations about.

Among the contentious clauses in the draft Bill were a proposal to hold the election of the Executive and the legislative arms of government separately, or that of the national government and the devolved governments.