HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 770492,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/770492/?format=api",
"text_counter": 413,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Katoo",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 199,
"legal_name": "Judah Katoo Ole-Metito",
"slug": "judah-ole-metito"
},
"content": "its powers under the EALA rules. They brought her name to the Committee, but it disqualified these two nominees. In addition, and as I said earlier, there were only five independent candidates who made it to the nomination desk. However, there are a lot of requirements for independent candidates to be eligible for this election. So, some of them had to be clarified by the IEBC and the presiding officers wrote to the IEBC on 1st December to confirm, first, whether, as required under Article 99(1)(a) of the Constitution, each provisionally nominated candidate is registered as a voter and is in the voters’ register held by the Commission. Secondly, whether as required under the same Article 99(1)(a) of the Constitution, the persons whose signatures were submitted by the independent candidates to support their nominations are registered voters. For an independent candidate, the nomination papers have to be accompanied by 1,000 signatures. Therefore, the presiding officers wrote to the IEBC to confirm whether those supporting the nominations of independent candidates are registered voters in the respective constituencies, who should be, at least, 1,000 in a constituency or 2,000 in a county. The presiding officers also wrote to the Registrar of Political Parties to ascertain whether the independent candidates meet the conditions set out in Section 33(1)(a) of the Elections Act which states inter alia that a person qualifies to be nominated as an independent candidate for parliamentary, presidential and county elections for purposes of Articles 97, 98, 137, 177 and 180 of the Constitution if that person has not been a member of any political party for at least three months preceding the date of election. That is for an independent candidate. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, we got the replies. Out of the five independent candidates who made it past the nomination desk, it was found that four of them are all registered as members of the Jubilee Party and, therefore, they are not independent. So, we as a Committee also disqualified those ones because they are not independent candidates. So, in essence, only one independent candidate again went past that second stage. It was a very rigorous exercise. Again, we went further on that and one person was partyless. I think he was called Mr. Eric Wanjohi Gatheru. The others are members of the Jubilee Party as far as the Registrar of Political Parties is concerned. This was Mr. Cheruiyot Kemei Tamogei, Ms. Hellen Makone, Mr. Billy Baltazar and Mr. Humphrey Kimani Njuguna. So, those other four flopped there. The only one, Mr. Eric Wanjohi Gatheru, who was partyless, was also somehow found to be unqualified at the next stage. He was not able to provide the 1,000 signatures of registered voters. It was a requirement that they furnish the IEBC with a soft copy of those 1,000 signatures which he did, but the number could not really reach 1,000. So, he could not meet the threshold. Remember there was a time a certain group tried to ask for 1,000,000 signatures to change the Constitution and when their soft copy was sent to the IEBC, they fell short of their numbers. Even these nominees were not able to meet the required threshold. So, in essence, out of the 24 nominees or candidates who applied under the independent category, nobody was found to be qualified to be in the final list. Therefore, I want to very quickly say that the list of those unsuccessful candidates is here, namely, the independent candidates who applied and were not successful and the reasons were given. We also received three complaints not necessarily from the public, but from three nominees or candidates who were asking to be admitted and one of them was the one I said The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}