The electoral commission has rescheduled for the second time a planned meeting with the National Super Alliance (Nasa).
“(The) meeting with Nasa officials this morning will be rescheduled to a new date to be announced,” the IEBC said in a Twitter post.
50 MINS
A planned joint meeting between the IEBC, the Nasa and President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party aborted on Tuesday after Deputy President William Ruto arrived an hour-and-a-half late.
Nasa leaders, led by Raila Odinga, had waited for 50 minutes and later walked out of the meeting, protesting Jubilee’s lateness.
They were also angered by what they said was an ambush by the IEBC when it handed them a 12-page agenda.
The IEBC then met the Jubilee Party team, which heaped praise on the Wafula Chebukati’s team, and called for respect of IEBC’s independence and decisions on staff placements.
CHILOBA
On Thursday morning, the IEBC said that the planned meeting would be rescheduled.
On Wednesday, Nasa had hinted that it would not attend the meeting, saying they had been treated unfairly in the first meeting.
Speaking on NTV’s Sidebar talk show, IEBC Chief Executive Ezra Chiloba said the meeting had been called to iron out issues that Nasa had raised.
Nasa has demanded Mr Chiloba’s sacking as well as those of 10 other officials before the October 17 fresh presidential elections as ordered by the Supreme Court.
AL-GHURAIR
The team has also demanded the sacking of returning officers implicated in what they allege was massive rigging, and the change of the Dubai-based Al-Ghurair as the printer of the presidential ballot papers.
“Al-Ghurair is our preferred choice (for printing the ballots) because we have an existing contract with them,” Mr Chiloba said, saying that the issue will come up in the meeting.
In the second half of the NTV programme, Senior Counsel James Orengo insisted that Nasa had no problem with meeting the IEBC, but insisted that the agenda of the meetings should be sent beforehand, and a clarification on whether it was a presidential candidates’ meeting or that of their agents and or representatives.
