Majority leader Adan Duale. He has maintained that IEBC is within the law to conduct party nominations. [Photo: Hiraan]
The constitution does not provide for the IEBC to conduct and manage party primaries, Felix Odhiambo, political analyst and ELGIA Executive Director has said.
Odhiambo says that IEBC is only supposed to develop and give the guidelines by which the political parties are to follow during their nominations.
"What the constitution provides for at Article 88 (4d) is that IEBC will develop the mechanism and regulations by which political parties’ nominations will be conducted," Odhiambo told Citizen TV on Sunday during the 9pm broadcast.
He added: "I have maintained a consistent position over this matter since 2011 when the matter first came into public discussion during the deliberations of the Elections Act and the IEBC Act of 2011. My position has always been in as much as there may be advantages in terms of enhancing the process by which the nominations are conducted, in the current political and electoral context, the situation doesn't yet allow the IEBC to weigh into party politics for a number of reasons."
He argued that IEBC already has so many activities that have to adhere to a very strict deadline and, therefore, it is left with little or no time to attend to individual party nominations.
The analyst corrected National Assembly Majority Leader Adan Duale who has maintained that it is within IEBC legal mandate to conduct party primaries on their request.
Duale's statement came after NASA threatened to challenge IEBC in court if it went ahead to conduct Jubilee nominations.
IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati, last week met the Jubilee Party secretariat where he indicated that IEBC will help Jubilee conduct its nominations though he said that he would have preferred that parties conduct their nominations.