[Outing going Senator Bellow Kerrow addressing a past press briefing. He has bowed out of the senatorial race, with a few weeks remaining to the polls.] (Photo/nyumbanitv.com)
There will be three candidates battling out for the Mandera senatorial seat after the incumbent Billow Kerrow bowed out of the race.
Kerrow was following a directive by the elders who had asked him and current governor Ali Roba to step aside.
The three are Mandera West MP Mohamud Mohamed of Jubilee, nominated MP Hassan Osman of Economic Freedom Party and Dr Abdinasir Mohamed Khalif of the Orange Democratic Movement who is making his first attempt in elective politics.
Osman, having been nominated by the powerful council of elders banks on it to give him a head start in the race, with Mohamed saying negotiated democracy is not something of the 21st century as that deprives people of their preferred candidates.
“Basically, I didn’t decide on my own to seek this seat but through negotiated democracy. I was picked as the best to represent my clan as it was our time,” said Osman.
In 2011, all the 21 sub-clans of the larger Garre community in Mandera agreed on rotational leadership where every sub-clan holds on a specific political position for a term as hands it to the next.
“We have a signed charter that created this opportunity for me and all those opposing it know very well that it can’t fail because it is binding to all of us,” said Osman in support of the clan elders’ agreement.
However, Mr Mohamed is against it saying it is a form of dictatorship. “They have become more powerful than IEBC, more than any other government organ in this country and we can’t accept to go that way.” he said.