FKF publish new elections dates

National elections for the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) will be held on March 27, three days from the deadline set by world football governing body FIFA to conclude the electoral process.

The FKF Electoral Board on Thursday released a calendar of events; with quite a tight schedule whose initial steps including publication of eligible clubs to vote done by COB Thursday.

The process will see elections for the County Representatives, who now take the roles of former branch chiefs, held on March 14.

This will be preceded by nominations of the County Representatives and of the National Executive Committee (NEC) members, as well as the one for the presidential aspirants between February 13 and 18, and February 22 respectively in the spirit of fair play as pledged by the Electoral Board chairperson Kentice Tikolo.

“It’s an honour for us to be picked to take oversee FKF elections and we want to assure the country that we are taking this process very seriously. It is going to be a very open and transparent exercise. We want to show the country that it is possible,” said Tikolo.

Poignantly, there will be only one day for the NEC and the presidential aspirants to submit their nomination papers for verification, on February 22 as opposed to the County Reps who will have a window of five days owing to the scope of the counties.

The nominees who pass the criteria for the three levels of elections (Counties, NEC and presidential) will be notified of their candidatures on March 2, a full list of the candidates set to published on the same day.

This will lead to a two-day period of training the Returning Officers and elections officials, between March 10 and 12.

There will be specified allowance of time for the aggrieved parties to appeal and be heard, from the levels of eligible voters to eligible candidates, while sticking to the plan of concluding the process within the FIFA time limits.

“We will be looking at March 30th as our end date and therefore all the procedures that have to be carried out must align with this date. This is what FIFA gave us and we have to work within its confines,” said Tikolo.

Further, disputes arising from the various elections will also have specific timings for appeal, with April 2nd being the final day for determining any queries emanating from the presidential polls.