North Eastern leaders who have been subjected to negotiated democracy have said they will defy orders by community elders not to vie in this year’s elections in favour of others candidates chosen by the community.
Speaking in Mandera, the leaders said they will not listen to such orders, which they said will affect the democratic rights of locals to elect their preferred candidates.
Led by Mandera Governor Ali Roba, they said the decision to bar them was barbaric and outdated, and did not in any way help promote local politics.
“Negotiated democracy in Mandera is dead, it cannot work, the leaders have said no, the powers the elders had is because the leaders have accorded them,” said Roba.
Mandera West MP Mohammed Mahmoud also voiced his opinion on the same, saying the locals had the right to elect any leader they felt would work for them.
“We’ve come here to bring our own democracy, not one that has been made from Nairobi, where they seat under a tree and their decision is influenced by money,” said Mahmoud.
The Gare council of elders had barred the leaders from vying for their seats, instead picking different candidates to replace them.
The negotiated democracy is based on rotational leadership, whereby the community elders seat and decide individuals to vie in a move aimed at balancing leadership from different areas.
The leaders, who also urged locals to register as voters in the ongoing exercises said they will go all the way to the ballot come august, adding that the people of Mandera will decide who their leaders will be.