Cord threatens ‘occupy IEBC’ to force out team

The opposition has renewed its ultimatum to have the polls team resign or face ejection.

Their latest call was boosted by the clerics who have added their voice to the raging debate urging officials of the Issack Hassan-led Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to quit so as to pave the way for the appointment of a body that is acceptable across the political divide.

Addressing supporters in Kamukunji, Nairobi, on Saturday, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his co-principals Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang’ula called on their supporters to stage sit-ins in all IEBC regional offices starting Monday to pile pressure on the commissioners to quit.

The sit-in will be led by the Cord leaders who are expected at the commission headquarters – Anniversary Towers – at 10 am on Monday.

Mr Odinga said the IEBC was operating on borrowed time.

“We have rejected the referee. Seventy per cent of Kenyans have rejected the referee. The clergy has rejected the referee, tell me any other reason why they should be in the office,” he said.

Aware that the security apparatus will be watching their activities, Mr Musyoka warned of dire repercussions should they be stopped from achieving their goal.

“The country will explode if they try to disrupt our peaceful processions and occupation of IEBC,” he said.

Cord accuses IEBC of rigging elections in favour of Jubilee in the 2013 polls whose presidential outcome was contested at the Supreme Court.

“They are yet to give an audit of the last elections that they bungled, we are not fools to go back to the same slaughterhouse. Never,” Mr Odinga said.

The Sunday Nation could not reach officials of the IEBC yesterday as they were said to be in some retreat outside Nairobi.

CORD'S PLAN
But in a tweet demonstrating that it is unfazed, the Commission claimed the churches were falling for Cord’s narrative against it.

“We have been meeting stakeholders to listen to their concerns on elections. The faith-based institutions are our next reach-out. The NCCK (National Council of Churches of Kenya) got it wrong. We have put in measures to realise more credible elections. We have no new red flags. All will be well,” it said.

The planned event will likely interrupt traffic in major roads within Nairobi’s central business district if it materialises.

Business could also suffer as some traders might keep off town in anticipation of trouble.

The mainstream churches, Catholic and Protestant, have called for the disbandment of the IEBC and cleaning up of the Judiciary in readiness for next year’s elections.  

Without clarifying, Mr Wetang’ula, who heads Ford-Kenya, said they will frustrate efforts to have the country go to the elections with the Commission as currently constituted.

“Issack Hassan should reconsider his position and leave gracefully. In the absence of electoral reforms, we will stop this country from going to the polls,” he said.

He urged President Uhuru Kenyatta to brace himself for a negotiated formula out of the current impasse in what is akin to the IPPG (Inter-Party Parliamentary Group) of 1997 when the opposition forced the Kanu government to agree to minimum electoral reforms before the elections later that year.

“If we humbled Mzee Moi (retired president Daniel arap Moi) yet, under the old Constitution he had absolute powers, he should not think he is invincible. Let him read the signs of the times,” he said.

STILL STRONG
Being the first rally they attended together after the Kakamega fiasco when goons attempted to disrupt Mr Wetang’ula’s presidential launch, Cord leaders turned the heat on the media accusing them of being part of the plot by Jubilee to divide their coalition.

“Do not listen to the newspapers. Our bond is unbreakable ahead of 2017 polls and beyond,” Mr Wetang’ula said.

He seems to have taken a cue from a section of the crowd, which was loudly urging them not to go separate ways.

“Alone I will not make it, it is the same case for my two brothers. If we stay together, we will triumph against our opponents and adversaries,” he said, eliciting a thunderous applause from the crowd.

Earlier, Mr Musyoka had taken a swipe at the Cord management Committee headed by senators James Orengo, Johnson Muthama and Tongaren MP Eseli Simiyu, accusing them of being reckless in so far as preserving the unity of the coalition goes.

“Anybody who wants information about the pact that brings us together can go to Lucy Ndung’u (Registrar of Political Parties) and get it. Let no one say that Weta (Mr Wetang’ula) is not a signatory to it. We want discipline in Cord and those charged with this responsibility must not be seen as diving us,” he said in rare jab at his troops.