Kenya’s Raila Odinga seeks reversal of key election law

Nairobi. ODM leader Raila Odinga’s lawyers have gone to court seeking to reverse an election law after he failed to meet its deadline.

The party’s lawyer on Wednesday challenged the implementation of the law that requires candidates in the 2017 elections to submit a list of their campaign finance management committees.

The penalty for violating the law is a fine of Sh2 million or a conviction of five years in jail or both.

Incidentally, this requirement was among the amendments made to the Elections Act by the joint select parliamentary committee whose members were drawn from Cord and Jubilee. It was part of the amicable solution to the deadly demonstrations that Cord organised to push for the exit of the nine electoral commissioners. The law also demands that politicians seeking office next year should open bank accounts and name the people who will manage them.

On Wednesday, Mr Norman Magaya, the Cord secretariat executive director, conceded that Mr Odinga failed to comply with the Election Finance Act.

“Our candidate, Raila Odinga, did not comply because that law was defective. We still do not have candidates. The law only requires candidates to make such submissions,” he said. One is declared a candidate after being nominated and given a nomination certificate. Before then, one is only an aspirant.(NMG)