IEBC clears three for Homa Bay race

The electoral agency has cleared three independent candidates for the Homa Bay senatorial seat even as ODM leader Raila Odinga met top party officials to decide on the party’s flag bearer.

Kenya Professional Boxing Commission (KPBC) chairman Hilary Alila, Prof Medo Misama and Mr Innocent Misara were given the green light to participate in the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission nominations that had been scheduled to start on December 15.

The three will be among the candidates to face it off with the ODM nominee expected to be announced today after day-long deliberations chaired by Mr Odinga at his Capitol Hill Office Monday.

Mr Odinga met new party chiefs led by chairman John Mbadi, secretary-general Ababu Namwamba, director of elections Junet Mohammed and national elections board members led by Ms Judy Pareno.

“We expect to conclude this process by tomorrow (Tuesday) so that our party candidate can kick off campaigns,” Mr Mohammed said.

The delay by the party in naming the candidate is already causing anxiety on the ground amidst claims of interference by top ODM leaders from outside Homa Bay County pushing for their preferred candidate.

Sources at Orange House yesterday confirmed that the party’s elections board had narrowed the search for the Orange candidate to three front runners, with Mr Moses Kajwang’, a younger brother of former senator Otieno Kajwang who died last month seeming to win favour of most of the current influential party officials.

Other front runners are Caroli Omondi and former Rangwe MP Philip Okundi, who is said to have ranked highly in the ODM ground survey.

“Okundi beat all of them in the survey, but the party is keen to deal with an anticipated Suba protest given the pre-election deal between various constituencies in the county, which gave the Subas the senatorial seat,” an ODM insider said.

On Monday the party delayed announcing of its candidate after Mr Odinga asked for time to talk to Mr Omondi and Mr Okundi regarding the matter.

REGIONAL BALANCE

Mr Okundi, who spoke to the Nation, dismissed talk of regional balance, saying, it will not have serious impact on his candidature and warned that the party will pay dearly if the wrong candidate is nominated.

“Everybody on the ground knows Okundi is everywhere. It is sad that games are being played with an important process like this,” Mr Okundi said.

Mr Omondi said he expected the party to be fair in making their decision to ensure it has the strongest candidate.

“We still hope that they will be fair in the decision they make, so that the party can have a candidate who easily wins the seat,” Mr Omondi said.

Other candidates include Mr Silas Jakakimba, Mr George Mboya, Mr Fred Rabongo and Dr Kenneth Kambona. Mr Aduke Ratemo who also contested in the last elections is also in the race on a Labour Party of Kenya ticket.

Mr Alila who ran against Mr Kajwang’ in the last poll through the People’s Democratic Party announced that he will shortly unveil his campaign.

Noting he had been cleared as an Independent, he said: “What remains is to unveil the campaign. We have networks across all the 800 polling centres.”

Some candidates warned the long wait would render the process suspicious.