Football poll to be held this month, says IIEC

By JAMES WAINDI

The Interim Independent Electoral Committee (IIEC) Chairman Isaak Hassan has said the much-awaited national football elections will be held before the end of this month.

The exercise that had initially been planned for April has been dogged by a number of issues that has seen it shelved a number of occasions and Hassan’s announcement would be good news for the local football fraternity. He, however, did not announce the exact date of the exercise.

Hassan’s announcement comes against the backdrop of an intended appointment of a caretaker committee by the world football governing body Fifa to run football affairs in Kenya. Fifa had vowed to put a caretaker committee in place if Kenya failed to hold elections by September 30.

"We could have announced the elections date by now, but we are still in discussions with the Interim Electoral Board and we would do so immediately the discussions are over," said Hassan.

He added: "The exercise should not take long when everything is in place. But there are too many football activities going on at the moment, but we will hold it before the end of October."

This weekend is too soon for the elections to be held and the national football team will be playing Uganda Cranes next weekend in a Africa Nations Cup qualifier in Kampala, making it only possible for the elections to be held on either the weekend of October 15, 22 or 29.

The IEB has already managed to raise Sh17.1 million for the exercise and Sports Minister Paul Otuoma on Monday directed the board to hand over the process to IIEC and that IIEC to also announce the election dates.

Hussein Mohammed, a candidate for the chairman’s position, said an exercise with less than 5,000 candidates should not take long to hold "since civic education can be done within three days through the media and local officials".