Raila pulls surprise move after announcing swearing-in date
Raila on Tuesday told his supporters that he will be sworn-in on December 12.
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The former Prime Minister’s technical team led by Economist David Ndii, former Foreign Affairs Assistant Minister Richard Onyonka (Kitutu Chache South), former EALA MP Abubakar Zein, Suna East’s Junet Mohamed and Kisumu Governor Peter Anyang’ Nyong is said to be working on the petition, after which they will brief the former Prime Minister on the way forward, a local daily reported Wednesday.
“We will be telling the UN that no election was held on October 26. It was a charade. The UN must, therefore, be briefed on the repercussions of Uhuru’s swearing-in without being validly elected as President of the Republic of Kenya,” Homa Bay MP Peter Kaluma said as quoted by the Star.
He added: “I hope the United Nations and the AU will look at the issue objectively regarding what an unpopular President means for the country.”
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The team divulged that Raila would be asking for the UN’s formal intervention to guide the formation of a six-month interim government and facilitate credible polls next year.
The new decision by Raila’s team to present the issue to the New York-based agency comes even after the United Nation’s Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his African Union counterpart Moussa Faki, gave a clean bill of health for the October 26 repeat polls.
Mr Faki, who tweeted minutes after the inauguration of President Uhuru Kenyatta, praised his new move to open up the Kenyan space for business to other African states. President Kenyatta promised to issue visas for all Africans visiting Kenya.
“Congratulations on this historic decision! I urge all African states that have not yet done so, to take similar measures towards free movement for all Africans across Africa,” Mr Faki tweeted on Tuesday.
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It remains unclear how Mr Faki of the Addis Ababa-based African Union would react to Mr Odinga’s petition, who is also set to receive a copy of the petition.
On Tuesday, Chief Justice David Maraga endorsed a once controversial issue of the legitimacy of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s election to office for his second term. Making reference to the duo ruling – with the first one which annulled his re-election, and later upheld his re-election – CJ Maraga told a mammoth crowd of over 60,000 at Kasarani that he was “presenting the president-elect and Deputy president-elect, without any heist to the Nation.”
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