The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has defended its decision to re-allocate the National Assembly nomination seat vacated by John Mbadi to Harold Kimuge Kipchumba.
In a statement on Wednesday, July 30, IEBC Chairperson Erastus Ethekon said the commission used the list submitted by the ODM party on July 23, 2022.
“The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party has publicly expressed concerns regarding the Commission’s decision to re-allocate the party list seat vacated by Hon. John Mbadi, claiming that the process was neither procedural nor lawful. Respectfully, this is not accurate.
“The party list used by the Commission was submitted by ODM on 23rd July 2022, subsequently published in newspapers on 27th July 2022, and uploaded on the IEBC website,” Ethekon stated.
The IEBC chairperson explained that Section 37 of the Elections Act and Regulation 56B of the Elections (General) Regulations, 2012, require that any vacant party list seat be filled by the next qualified nominee on the list based on gender and order of priority.
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“In this case, the nominee who qualified under the law was Mr. Harold Kimuge Kipchumba, who is of the same gender as Hon. Mbadi and was the next in line on the submitted list,” Ethekon stated.
This comes after the ODM Youth League publicly opposed the nomination of Kipchumba to the National Assembly.
Speaking on Monday, July 28, members of the ODM Youth League argued that the IEBC erred in selecting Kipchumba as the replacement.
ODM Youth League Deputy President Martin Muthusi maintained that John Ketora was the rightful nominee, as he was second in line under the 'workers' category
“We cannot replace a worker with a person with disability category because they already had their slot,” said Muthusi.
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