Two men seek to block IEBC from listing voters in Lamu

Two people have gone to court seeking orders to stop the electoral agency from registering voters in Lamu County.

Rishad Hamid Ahmed and Ali Bakari Mohamed want the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to first review names and boundaries of wards in the county.

IEBC has launched voter registration in parts of Coast which were left out during the recent exercise due to a by-election and a pending electoral dispute.

The registration began in Malindi constituency Monday but Lamu remains unregistered because of a dispute from the March 4, 2013 gubernatorial election which is pending before the Supreme Court.

In September last year the High Court in Malindi ordered IEBC to create five new wards in Lamu after finding that the county had fewer electoral districts than what the law decrees.

Monday, Hamid and Bakari filed their papers in a Mombasa court asking that the matter be certified as urgent.

Their lawyer Yusuf Abubakar, said he was ready to argue the case this morning. "I am ready for the application tomorrow to persuade the court to stop the voter registration," said Abubakar.

Hamid and Bakari who are voters in Hindi and Mkomani wards respectively say under the new constitution, IEBC is expected to review the number, names and boundaries of wards 12 months before a General Election.

Last year, Justice Said Chitembwe advised IEBC to review the number of wards in Lamu from ten to at least 15.