CORD PRESS STATEMENT:
Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, we thank you for your joining us this afternoon and for your continued professional interest in the activities we have been pursuing in the last three weeks.
We called to inform you that as we announced earlier, we will again stage protests tomorrow, 23rd May 2016, in Nairobi and across the country to have the IEBC disbanded. Kenyans will be doing this, as we have done in the past, in exercise of their right to assemble peaceably and to direct the widest possible attention to a great national issue.
The need for holding free, fair and credible elections cannot be said to be novel or difficult to understand. It should not be an afterthought.
It must come from a deliberate effort that begins with ensuring that the people tasked with holding those elections are men and women of integrity, non-partisan, professional and capable. Those people do not currently exist at the IEBC. That is what our picketing has been and will continue to be about.
In embarking on protests, we are simply creating intensified and widespread public awareness of the need to move forward in achieving these objectives that are the desire of all democracies. We do not understand why others are opposed to having a professional, non-partisan and credible electoral body.
We are in this to demonstrate our faith and confidence in the possibilities available under our democratic form of government. We believe Kenya is still a democracy not a dictatorship.
We want to thank our supporters for the deep passion and the dignity that characterizes the protests so far. We intend to hold peaceful protests. We shall not be armed and we shall not seek to harm anyone or destroy property. We have made detailed preparations that are known to us internally but which shall be clearly discernible on the streets. These preparations shall make it possible and for an orderly and peaceful protest. But we are aware that Jubilee is planning to plant people in our protests under the guise coming to support the IEBC. Those behind this plan are well known. They have spoken about it openly and they have been planning in public.
It will be upon the National Government, particularly the Interior Ministry and the presidency to ensure the CORD protesters enjoy police protection and that criminals are kept at bay or dealt with as provided by the law. We appeal to Kenyans of good will, the men and women who believe in this country and who want to preserve it in a better form for the next generation to join us tomorrow and in the days ahead. Let’s put fear and doubts aside. No nation was ever built through fear. Only courage builds great nations. Let’s meet tomorrow.
SIGNED
SEN JAMES ORENGO
SEN. JOHNSTON MUTHAMA
22ND MAY 2016.
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