President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party has once again postponed Nairobi primaries as the ruling coalition struggles to get it right after last Friday’s total poll failure.
Polls will be held on Wednedesday.
At first they were to be on Friday last week, but that was switched to Monday when national polls were split.
Then Tuesday. That too has been postponed.
JP secretary general Raphael Tuju announced nominations will be on Wednesday, the deadline for
primaries
There is speculation the delay is caused by the standoff in negotiations between former Gatanga MP Peter Kenneth and Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko. Both want the JP ticket. Neither will back down.
“We rescheduled Nairobi to Tuesday, but it was found that it’s clashing with ODM, so we asked to vacate that to Wednesday,” the former minister announced.
Nairobi will be a do or die battle for bigwigs in the Jubilee Party, who are also key allies of President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Tuju said political parties are using the same schools as polling centres, making it impossible to have primaries on the same day.
“As a courtesy since they [ODM] were in that date first, we decided to take Wednesday,” Tuju told journalists after political parties met with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
However, IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati cited security threats as the main reason Jubilee and ODM could not hold the polls on the same day
“The Commission directs ODM to proceed with nominations on 25 April and Jubilee on 26 April.
Political parties must avoid having primaries at the same venue on the same dates,” Chebukati warned.
Apart from the epic duel between Kenneth and Sonko, competition is stiff in nearly all JP strongholds in Nairobi.
