Orange Democratic Movement party county officials have warned that it will not be business as usual if their votes are stolen in the forthcoming 2017 general elections.
They included chairmen, secretaries and women leaders from the 47counties across the country.
In a statement read by the Bungoma County ODM women league’s chairlady Sophy Marumbu at Maanzoni Lodge in Machakos County on Wednesday, they said Kenyan’s had lost confidence in the electoral body IEBC.
“We as representatives of ODM from the 47 counties demand that IEBC be disbanded with immediate effect. The fact that it is not independent but actively affiliated to the Jubilee Alliance Party is no longer in doubt,” said Marumbu.
Marumbu said the latest development in which IEBC had rejected the Okoa Kenya referendum initiative quoting the same reasons and figures by Aden Duale and Johnson Sakaja last week confirms the fears and doubts they had always held as a party.
She said the time has come for them to part ways with IEBC and the entire infrastructure of institutions that Jubilee is lining up to cushion itself and defeat the will of people in 2017.
“Msimamo yetu kama chama ni kura yetu ikiibiwa 2017, mambo hayatakua kawaida,” said Murumbu.
“We the grassroots leaders of ODM have reason to believe the IEBC cannot deliver free and fair polls. It is our stand that the schemes against the people can only be overthrown through mass campaigns,” added she.
Marumbu said they stand ready to support any actions that the party’s national leadership might deem necessary to halt the steady slide of the country into abyss.
She said it is their opinion that it is high time the party embarks on open and deliberate policy of defiance and resistance to stop the schemes by the Jubilee administration to return the country to the old order.
“We are looking at a pattern very similar to what IEBC did for us with Jubilee in 2013. Then as now, statements originated from Jubilee leaders about the numbers they have and would get at the polls, then the IEBC bent over and went all out to make the prophecy come true,” said Murumbu.
Murumbu said Jubilee is once again leading the chorus on question of threshold, it is raising questions over the veracity and the number of signatures Cord submitted.
“Jubilee is raising the question of threshold which was and remains at the centre of Uhuru Kenyatta’s fraudulent victory in 2013 when IEBC went out to ensure the Jubilee candidate scraped through without a run off. We will not sit back and watch this evil scheme take roots,” said Murumbu.
“Our Constitution guarantees us the right to peacefully assemble, demonstrate, picket and present petitions to public authorities. The time has come for us to make use of these rights. We stand ready to step in and mobilize Kenyans at the grassroots to reclaim and save our country,” said she.