Africa-Press – Kenya. George Okode is the Siaya County assembly speaker.
He was declared the winner during the first round of the vote after he garnered 38 votes against his closest challenger Evans Oruenjo who got two votes.
Okode clinched the speaker’s position for a third term during the election conducted in the first sitting of the new assembly on Tuesday.
Okode, a lawyer by profession, hails from Rarieda sub-county and was first elected as speaker in 2013.
The house convened at 9 am with the acting clerk Erick Ogenga laying on the table two gazette notices listing all the elected and nominated members of the third assembly.
The next order of business was the administration of an affirmation of oath of office to the 40 members of the assembly after which they elected the speaker.
The speaker’s position attracted 12 individuals who picked nomination forms from the clerk’s office.
Three individuals who had declared interest in the race failed to return their nomination forms as required to the clerk by Tuesday.
Lawyer George Mbeya was amongst the aspirants who failed to show up.
Seven candidates were disqualified following allegations of forgery.
The MCAs distanced themselves from the allegations and asked relevant agencies to take legal action against MCAs who accused them of forgery.
These developments saw the clerk declare Okode and Oruenjo as the only candidates that met the set requirements to contest the seat.
Siaya has 30 Wards. However, ward elections in South Gem Ward were postponed due to the death of one of the candidates ( Nick Wanga of ODM) a few weeks before the polls.
That means the assembly now have 29 elected MCAs.
There were also 12 nomination slots. However, IEBC failed to Gazette one nominee. So the house has 11 nominated members at the moment.
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