Why Ekuru Aukot wants to ‘stop’ August General Election
Thirdway Alliance Party leader Dr Ekuru Aukot has now threatened to move to court to stop the August 9 election following what he termed as a sham, discriminative clearance process of the presidential candidates by IEBC.
In a statement, the party leader said that IEBC’s Chairperson Wafula Chebukati flouted not just the Constitution of Kenya 2010, but also the enabling legislation.
According to him, Mr Chebukati, the presidential returning officer deliberately carried out a subjective selection process instead of a nomination process.
“Wafula Chebukati issued nomination certificates to predetermined aspirants without adhering to the provisions of Article 137(1)(d) of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 and The Elections (General Regulations) No. 18,” he said.
He added that the IEBC chairperson applied different standards in clearing aspirants to run for the office of President, while some aspirants were allowed time to regularise the shortfall.
“He further cleared candidates who have not met the required educational standards as per the law. He flip-flopped in the nomination of candidates; one minute a candidate is cleared, and the next minute a candidate’s certificate is revoked.”
Dr Aukot was among the presidential aspirants who were seeking to be cleared by the commission to run for the top office but failed to meet the commission’s requirements.
According to Chebukati, Aukot was disqualified for failing to provide signatures and copies of national identity cards of 48,000 registered voters who endorsed his presidential bid, which was one of the commission’s requirements.
It would have been his second attempt to be the president after his first attempt in the 2017 general election, where he came at position five with 27,400 votes, equal to 0.18 percent of the total votes that were cast.
Recently, the party leader lost a court case where he was seeking to bar the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Coalition Presidential Candidate Raila Odinga from being on the ballot.
He had alleged that Mr Odinga was not a member of the Azimio Coalition Party, which to him is a corporate entity as envisaged by section 12 of the Political Parties Act, 2011.
The membership of the coalition comprises 26 parties which include Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), Jubilee, KANU, and Wiper Democratic Movement Party among others.