Embrace tolerance, political leaders told

Political leaders in Siaya County have been asked to embrace tolerance to avoid confrontations that may cause chaos ahead of this year’s General Election.

Siaya County Commissioner Mrs Josephine Onunga has urged the politicians to conduct their campaigns in a civilized and peaceful manner, noting that Kenya is a democratic country where all citizens have the right of expression.

She said that politicians should focus on selling their policies peacefully without causing any form of animosity or conflict amongst the electorates.

“In a democracy we need to accommodate all divergent views. You come with your idea, I come with my idea and everybody comes with his or hers at the end of the day, the determining factor is the electorate. So let’s sale our ideas, our programs and our policies in a professional way, in an intelligent manner and as human beings in a civilized manner,” she said.

The county commissioner who was speaking during a public Baraza at Sihayi Chief’s camp in Ugenya Constituency at the same time warned those eying various elective positions to avoid using youths to cause disturbance during this campaign period

Mrs Onunga lamented that many youths have previously lost their lives due to such engagements and advised the youths to avoid being misused by politicians.

“We should not misuse our people especially the youth, because we have [many] youths who are idle,” she said.

The administrator challenged the politicians to be at the forefront in practicing democracy by engaging in less politics and more development projects since the campaign period has not yet been officially announced.

“Right now we are still at the registration period but already you can see the air, the climate is politically charged so we want the politicians to reduce the political temperatures so that we can focus on development, and once we focus on development we mentor our youths to also focus on development,” she advised.

She was accompanied by Ugenya Deputy County Commissioner Mr Paul Merinyang’ among other administrators and local leaders who encouraged the locals to take advantage of the on-going voter registration exercise to be enlisted as voters ahead of the 8th August 2017 General Election.