- High Court issued an order stopping the 47 county assemblies from debating the Bill
- But Aukot says none of the county assemblies has been served with the injunction
Thirdway Alliance party leader Ekuru Aukot took his Punguza Mizigo campaign to Baringo county on Tuesday despite a court order barring him.
Aukot said the court injunction was politically instigated and unconstitutional.
“In my view, the judge made a mistake because you cannot alter or bar a constitutional timeline by way of a court order,” he said.
Last Friday, High Court judge James Makau issued an order stopping the 47 county assemblies from debating the Bill following a petition.
The judge said the orders would remain in force for 14 days as the other parties named in the petition filed their responses. The case will be heard on August 13.
Aukot said he is working to beat the IEBC deadline of three months.
“Once the IEBC places a Bill then constitutionally a timeline of three months is given for discussions and debates and it counts right away, so then if I honour the court injunction how will the assemblies recover the lost 14 days?” he said.
He said after Baringo he would proceed to Elgeyo Marakwet, West Pokot, Trans-Nzoia and Uasin Gishu.
Once the IEBC places a Bill then constitutionally a timeline of three months is given for discussions and debates and it counts right away, so then if I honour the court injunction how will the assemblies recover the lost 14 days?Aukot
He said none of the 47 county assemblies have been served with the stop order stopping debte.
Speaker David Kiplagat said he had not received any order and allowed Aukot to meet the 48 MCAs.
Aukot accused members of the Building Bridges Initiative of filing the court petition to frustrate his Bill.
He said under the Bill all the 1,450, wards in Kenya will remain.“The reason is simple: to accelerate development beyond the county headquarters,” he said.
“It is also not true what we have heard that the Bill is against women. In fact it is promoting gender balance because we are promoting a 50-50 on elective positions,” he said.
He said the Bill abolish the 290 current constituencies so wards are the primary units managing development funds.
“We want a scenario where people can feel the government resources directly down in the wards such as good schools, clean water, hospitals, electricity,” he said.
He lashed on leaders going round the country spreading propaganda against the Bill.
“These are the number one enemies of development in our country and they only think they have the monopoly of knowledge and ideas,” he said.
At the weekend, National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale and ODM leader Raila Odinga dismissed the Punguza Mizigo Bill.