The Kisumu county assembly has declared the speaker's position vacant and invited applicants to fill it.
Kisumu North MCA Elisha Oraro has been holding the position in an acting capacity since September last year.
Former speaker Onyango Oloo was impeached on September 18 last year and lost a reinstatement bid in the courts.
Oloo was impeached after he was charged with graft in the Sh4.5 billion Lake Basin Development Authority Mall scandal.
The mall in Kisumu was put up when Oloo served as board chair of the authority.
In suit papers, Oloo said the impeachment process was illegal and he was not given a chance to be heard, thereby infringing on his rights.
But the court ruled that the impeachment was procedural. The motion was passed by 42 members of county assembly constituting 75 per cent of the house, meeting the threshold.
In an advert in the local dailies on Thursday, the assembly clerk announced a special sitting on January 24 to elect the new speaker.
Eligible persons interested in contesting the seat should collect nomination papers from the office of the clerk. The process is open until Tuesday next week.
“The completed application form, nomination papers, together with the curriculum vitae and relevant supporting document of each candidate should be returned to the office of the clerk at least before 48 hours before the special sitting,” reads the advert.
Already, intense lobbying for the seat has begun, with a number of candidates already talking to the ODM party and MCAs to secure their backing.
But MCAs who spoke to the Star said that they would prefer one of their colleagues, rather than elect anybody from outside as speaker.
“We don't want to go through the same experience we went through in the hands of the former speaker Oloo,” one of them said.
Some have been pushing for acting speaker Oraro to go for the position.
Sources say he has been rallying for support from some of the MCAs allied to Oloo and also enjoys the party's backing.
However, it's not clear whether he will resign from his seat as an MCA while going for the position.
Lawyer Ken Amondi is the only candidate who has publicly declared an interest in the position as others secretly lobby MCAs.
This will be Amondi's third attempt at trying to clinch the position. He lost to Ann Adul in 2013 and Onyango Oloo in 2017.
Amondi was also one of the lawyers who represented the assembly in Oloo's reinstatement bid.
The advocate has been engaging the MCAs seeking for their approval for the seat.
