Leader of Majority in Parliament Aden Duale has intensified rivalry with the NASA coalition after writing to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) opposing nomination of 4 NASA candidates.
Duale is in strong opposition of the nomination of NASA’s Zein Abubakar, Judith Pareno, Ronald Kipngetich and Kennedy Musyoka.
He has also opposed the nomination of 15 other independent candidates.
In the letter dated May 15, Duale said the number of NASA applicants is below the set threshold.
“In forwarding four names, the coalition mischievously seeks to deny the house the freedom of choice to reject any or all of the four candidates. This is clearly an attempt to prevent freedom of choice at the voting stage especially where Cord had 41 applicants, 24 in the National Assembly and 17 in the Senate,” said the Majority Leader as told by the Star.
He cast doubt over the transparency of the nomination of the four NASA members by their respective political parties.
He challenged ODM and Wiper to produce written record of the proceedings at which the final decision to nominate the four was made in a bid to establish if or not, the process was fair and transparent.
As for the 15 independent applicants; they do not meet the requirements.
Article 99(1)(c) of the constitution stipulates that any independent candidate seeking for appointment to EALA should gather support from registered voters by presenting 1, 000 signatures from them.
“Support by registered voters is the formula used to replace the rigorous process of nomination by a political party. It would be unfair to require party candidates to undergo the party process while the independent candidates are spared from the process of gathering the requisite signatures from registered voters,” added Duale.
John Maina, John Nekesa, Billy Mrema, Anthony Kibagendi, Fredrick Isika, Jack Obiero, Pamela Odira, Caroline Aluoch, Steve Marwa are some of the independent candidates.
Others include: Suleiman Seka, Duncan Mwangi Ndegwa, Mohamed Adan, Mohamud Adan, Thomas Katua, Collins Odhiambo and Walter Momanyi.