CORD Statement on Rigging Amendments

[Omollo]

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CORD has issued a statement on the partisan amendments brought before parliament by Uhuru Kenyatta to facilitate the rigging of elections in August this year.

PRESS STATEMENT:
A GREAT BERAYAL HAS BEEN COMMITTED AGAINST KENYANS:
Our Parliament has witnessed some bizarre scenes and moments between 2013 and now. It has witnessed several attempts by the Jubilee regime to raid the constitution and overturn the will of the people for individual gain. It has witnessed blatant efforts to reintroduce dictatorship in the country in the name of giving the President power to fight insecurity. The list is long.

But the spectacle that began in the National Assembly during a special sitting late last month and ended in the Senate last night, count among the most bizarre. It stands out as a blatant willingness by the Jubilee regime to sell out the entire country for no reason other than the survival of the increasingly unpopular corruption-ridden government.

One by one, Jubilee senators, disregarding irregularities and illegalities in the process, cast their ballot for the Bill whose sole aim is to make it easy for the regime to allow underage and dead voters to cast their votes in addition to stuffing the ballot boxes in the elections slated for August 2017.

Jubilee committed a great betrayal on the people of Kenya last night in the same way it did last month in the National Assembly. Jubilee has disowned what was initially a bipartisan agreement that pulled us from the brink and turned it into a full-blown national and government crisis.

In its desperate bid to create opportunities to rig the election, Jubilee senators went as far as fraudulently casting votes using their nominated senators who had no authority from the elected senators to represent their respective delegations. During all the discussions in both the National Assembly and the Senate, Parliament was put under siege by the overwhelming presence of the Police and other security agencies whose purpose was to intimidate legislators into passing the laws under duress.

This is now a crisis because the people of Kenya are determined today more than ever to hold free, fair, transparent and credible elections the results of which will have to be verifiable.

We will respond to this betrayal of the people comprehensively, decisively and firmly. We therefore wish to announce that we have invited all our elected leaders; members of county assemblies, members of the National Assembly, senators, governors and women representatives both elected and aspirants on opposition tickets to a meeting next Wednesday, 11th January 2017 at the Bomas of Kenya to deliberate on the developments. At this meeting a critical decision will be taken and communicated to all Kenyans on our plans to deal with this betrayal of the people by Jubilee and ensure free, fair, transparent and credible elections in August 2017.

Signed
HON RAILA ODINGA.
HON KALONZO MUSYOKA.
SEN. MOSES WETANGULA.
HON CYRUS JIRONGO.
JANUARY 6, 2017