Kenyan court extends primaries deadline

NAIROBI — Kenyan political parties have reportedly been given a five-day extension to nominate their candidates for the upcoming general elections in August, after a successful court ruling.

According to BBC, the primaries must now be held by May 1, after a successful court challenge to extend the April 26 deadline.

During the court challenge, the east African country’s political parties argued that the April 26 deadlines would deny party members the right to choose their candidates for elections.

In many constituencies across the east African nation, the preliminary votes were delayed, with some of the contestant claiming irregularities.

President Uhuru Kenyatta admitted to reporters that not enough election materials had been provided.

This comes just two days after the country’s electoral body had said that it would not extend the deadline, despite calls from the political parties to do so.

According to Standard Digital, during a meeting with the various political parties that would be contesting the August 8 elections, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission said that the parties must have completed their primaries today, April 26.

The IECB said that the parties had just three days to complete their primaries.

The request for extension follows a series of anomalies that have resulted to cancellation of results and postponement of the nomination exercise in various centres. — AFP