PH
Kenyan police fired teargas on Monday to disperse hundreds of protesters in the capital Nairobi. The police had earlier labeled the protest as ‘illegal’.
The protests called by the opposition coalition, Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) happened in major towns in the country considered political strong holds and the Daily Nation reported that one person was shot and later died at a hospital in Kisumu as police used live bullets to disperse protesters.
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.
Heavy security presence was witnessed in the towns as police insisted the protests were illegal .
Dubbed the “mother of all demos”, CORD is pushing for the scrapping of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) saying it is politically biased.
The protests now in their fourth week comes ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections to be held in August 2017 and politicians are already trying to galvanize their supporters.
Kenya’s government has called on the opposition not to stage protests against the electoral body but should follow the constitution in their quest to remove IEBC commissioners.
However, CORD has vowed to keep up the protests in Nairobi and other regions. “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,” it said in a statement.
