(Bloomberg) -- Kenya's government warned county legislators against forming so-called people's assemblies proposed by the opposition to demand political reform.
County governments that hold sittings to vote for civil disobedience will be breaking the law and legislators may face surcharges for wasting public resources, government spokesman Eric Kiraithe told reporters Thursday in the capital, Nairobi.
“Every meeting called in furtherance of an unlawful purpose is by law an unlawful assembly,” he said. “Any person attending such unlawful assembly should expect the full force of the law to be applied against them.”
Kenya's main opposition announced last month it would establish a so-called People's Assembly to press for fresh elections, after it rejected an Oct. 26 presidential-election rerun as a “sham.” President Uhuru Kenyatta won the repeat vote, which was held after the Supreme Court annulled an earlier ballot in August that the opposition says was rigged. Opposition leader Raila Odinga withdrew from the rerun and urged a boycott, resulting in voter turnout more than halving to 39 percent.
Kenya's High Court ruled this week that county governments can't pass or implement motions on the formation of the assemblies, the Daily Nation reported on Nov. 20.
To contact the reporter on this story: Samuel Gebre in Nairobi at sgebre@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Karl Maier
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