Three petitioners claiming to represent 12 million Kenyan voters on Tuesday moved to court seeking to stop calls for a referendum.
Rev John Mbugua, Gilbert Mukabane and Stephen Omodia Emuskut want the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) leaders stopped from pushing for a referendum.
The three say Cord lacks moral authority to make the demands for a referendum, claiming such calls would highly divide the country.
They argue that Cord leaders specifically are acting hypocritically by pushing for a referendum which would be supervised by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), in which they claim they have no confidence.
“Calls for referendum are completely a violation of our rights and should be stopped, it is hypocritical for these leaders to call for a referendum yet it will still be supervised by an electoral body they don’t have faith in,” said Rev Mbugua.
DEMANDING COURT ORDER
The petitioners demanded that the court issues an order stopping the push for referendum and the disbandment of the IEBC since the leaders allegedly have no moral authority to do so.
But High Court judge Isaac Lenaola only told them to serve the sued parties before getting any further direction from the court.
They have sued Cord leaders Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetangula and James Orengo, as well as UDF, ODM, Wiper, and Ford Kenya political parties.
Also listed in the suit are the Cabinet Secretaries responsible for the Interior and Devolution.
The group has moved to court a day after chairman of the Okoa Maisha initative’s technical committee Paul Mwangi said that he had information that anti referendum forces had planned to go to court to block collection of new signatures on grounds that Cord’s quest was not backed by a referendum question.
The case will be heard on October 8, 2014.
-nation.co.ke
