Row emerges on composition of ODM's election board

Nominated MP Oburu Oginga PHOTO:COURTESY

A section of county ODM aspirants have accused the party's Constituency Election Board of bias.

The aspirants have questioned the criteria the party's National Election Board (NEB) used to select the names of five constituency election panellists. They want NEB to change the officials.

Speaking at a meeting with the County Election Board, a number of aspirants complained that they were not familiar with the names of the people on the constituency election panel.

Bondo MP Gideon Ochanda who is defending his seat, said the party was not prepared for the nominations as there are emerging issues of inadequate funding as well as the names of some candidate missing from the party list.

"There is a level of unpreparedness in terms of funding the nomination. The county election board should come out clearly and talk about the issues they are sure about, not what they are being told by individuals from the head office," said Mr Ochanda.

 

The MP said the elections board ought to have presented a sample of the voting papers to aspirants for the sake of clarity and to ensure that they know how they look like.

But his rival, nominated MP Oburu Oginga, claimed that Ochanda was comfortable with the panel because they were his personal friends.

"It is funny how Ochanda is very comfortable with the elections board because he feels favoured. All those on the panel are his personal friends," Dr oginga said.

Alego Usonga parliamentary aspirant Samuel Atandi claimed that members of the election panel planned to favour their friends.

"These are some of the issues that lead to violence during nominations," Mr Atandi said.

"I read mischief because one of the members of the election board is very close to Governor Cornel Rasanga. How can I trust that she will be fair during the nominations? We want the board members thoroughly scrutinised," said governor aspirant William Oduol