Uhuru threatened to SACK speaker Muturi Raila

The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) leader, Raila Odinga, has castigated National Assembly Speaker, Justin Muturi, and the Jubilee parliamentary leadership for contravening the house rules and making changes to the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2016.

During an interview with Citizen TV on Thursday, December 22 evening, Odinga said that house Standing Orders bar laws enacted in Parliament from being return for review less than six months after the date of passing.

“The Standing Orders say that a bill or law that has been passed by Parliament cannot come back for amendments within the next six months. The six months have not lapsed,” said Odinga.

He added that there was an agreement when the Joint Parliamentary Select Committee prepared the Act, it would be passed without any alterations.

He claimed that Speaker Justin Muturi was under fire from his bosses to push Parliament to pass the changes or face sacking.

“That night the Speaker was called by the President and told that if he does not reconvene the Parliament he was going to be sacked,” claimed Odinga.

He faulted the Jubilee government for using its numerical strength in Parliament to impose a law on the people of Kenya.

The opposition chief refuted claims that his coalition MPs were informed well in advance of the proposed amendments by the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee (JLAC).

“We have our members there and they said that they were not consulted.”

He likened the events in the National Assembly during the debate to amend the electoral laws to the 1982 amendments of Section 2 (a) of the Constitution that transformed Kenya into a single party state saying: “It was the darkest day in the country’s history in terms of Parliament.”

He, however, promised to withdraw the call for mass protests set for January 4, 2017 should the case they lodged in court challenging the legality of the amendments goes through.

“If the court rules in one way or the other, will not go to the streets. We will respect the rule of law.”

He maintained his stand that Jubilee leadership aggressively pursued the reinstatement of the manual voting and results transmission system to facilitate a premeditated plan to rig the elections.