The IIEC is ready to conduct the Matulo by-election

Written by Rosemary Wachiye 2011-11-04 17:37:00 Read 291 Times

As the Matulo Ward by-elections is expected to take place on November 28 this year, most of the political parties held nominations in the previous weeks and despite having more than 10 contestants who had earlier shown interest for the seat, only 4 aspirants have been left standing. The four nominees out of the many that had shown interest to run for the vacant seat after the death of the then Webuye Municipal Deputy Mayor Timothy Karandini have today presented their papers to the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) offices at Webuye for verification and clearance. In his address to the aspirants, the IIEC Returning Officer for Webuye Constituency Mr. John Matekwa urged them to follow the rules and regulations set by the law during an election period. “I would like to call upon all the candidates for the election to adhere to all the set rules for an election period, which if they don’t follow will call for stern action to be taken against them,” said Mr.Matekwa.  Mr.Matekwa has announced that the official campaign will start on November 6th up to November 26th from 6 am to 6 pm and wanted all the aspirants to take note since his office doesn’t expect any of them to start early campaigns or exceed the set time. He also warned the aspirants against holding any public rally without consent of the law enforcers failure to which will be considered an illegal political rally. Mr.Matekwa called upon the candidates to carry out the campaign in a fair, truthful and transparent manner to avoid any violence. “We are treating this by-election seriously in preparation for next year’s general elections, since in case of any mistakes they may spill over to the forthcoming general elections and that may cause post election violence as the one experienced in the past election,” said Mr.Matekwa. He also called upon the Matulo residents to accord each candidate the opportunity to sell out their political manifestos without favoritism and intimidation. The remaining candidates who are in the race for the seat are, Mr. Isaac Wangila Welemba for Ford Kenya, Mr. George Kukali Simiyu for National Vision Party, Mr. Grime Abram Juma for New Ford Kenya and Mr. Ronald Mukanda Makhanu for Orange Democratic Movement(ODM). He also added that by COB on 4th November he will be handing over the names of the cleared candidates to the national IIEC chairman in preparation for the forthcoming elections and warned the candidates against breaching any of the set rules to avoid disqualification.