Taita Taveta Women Representative Joyce Lay at a past event. [Photo/ nation.co.ke]
Taita Taveta Women Representative Joyce Lay has told opposition leader Raila Odinga to focus on his campaigns and stop criticizing the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
Lay said Raila was not in order to call for the cancellation of the tender awarded to Dubai’s Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing Company to print ballot papers for the August general poll.She said the time left for the country to go to the election was insufficient for a fresh tendering process to begin.“What we want in Kenya is peace. Raila is an elder and we respect him. However, it’s not right to go around instilling tension and fear among Kenyans all the time,” she said.Raila is against the awarding of the ballot paper printing tender to Al Ghurair.On Tuesday last week while chairing a panel during the National Elections Conference (NEC) at the KICC in Nairobi, he highlighted how the IEBC is allegedly collaborating with the Jubilee administration to rig the presidential poll in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s favour.“The first step to democracy is dialogue,” he said.“NASA will not relent in its pursuit for a free and fair election. The practice of manipulating the will of the people to protect a few is now dead in Kenya. The Kenyan people are awake and will not accept a rigged process.”During the NEC, he broke silence over the alleged relationship between top Jubilee politicians and owners of Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing Company.“Officials of the firm were in Kenya in October 2016 as head of the business delegation brought by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, during which trip they held further talks on this contract with Jubilee officials. As NASA, our stand remains that the involvement of this firm in this elections bodes ill and compromises credibility of the elections.”Lay said Kenyans were aware of Raila’s machinations to cause tension ahead of the August poll.