ODM has sent mixed signals on the party’s grassroots elections that were initially scheduled for April 2021.
The party last month announced the elections had been postponed without giving much details on the move.
Deputy party leader Wycliffe Oparanya on Friday said the grassroots elections were put off because it was coming too close to next year’s general election.
He said the elections will be conducted after the general election next year.
But ODM Elections Board chairperson Catherine Mumma has distanced her team from talks of grassroots polls after next year’s elections.
Mumma told Star that NEB is not aware of plans to have the polls after the 2022 general election.
Oparanya cited time constraints and claimed holding polls close to 2022 may leave the party wounded and divided.
“We have agreed as the National Central Committee that we carry out harmonisation in all our branches and in all our party structures,” he said in Vihiga.
“We feel this would be more viable at the moment, because if we did an election near the general election then it becomes a problem, many issues arise, and in the process we might divide the party.”
But Mumma disowned Oparanya’s claims saying her board was not aware a decision to postpone the polls had been reached.
“Not to my knowledge,” Mumma told Star when asked about the delayed polls.
NEB is charged with the mandate of planning, organising, directing, conducting, supervising and or coordinating all party elections and nomination of candidates.
ODM was scheduled to hold nationwide elections between March and April but was rescheduled given the strict Covid-19 guidelines that banned political gatherings.
Mumma told the Star last month that the board was drawing guidelines in readiness for the exercise.
The party was to spend Sh220 million, according to a budget presented by NEB to the secretariat.
The elections were to begin from grassroots (polling station), sub-branch (ward), branch (constituency), county to the national level. BY THE STAR
