NAIROBI JULY 28, 2017 (CISA) – Religious leaders from various faith groups have emphasized that the country needs a credible elections that can deliver acceptable outcomes.
The leaders were speaking July 27, at Ufungamano House, Nairobi during the Multi-Sectoral Forum to pray for peaceful and credible general elections which is 10 days away.
“Through pastoral letters, messages sent out to our Christians, have categorically expressed our desire peaceful credible, free, elections to elect our leaders of integrity. However sometimes we have been accused that we have overemphasized peace and sacrificed justice,” said Bishop Philip Anyolo, Chairman Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB).
“I wish to remind you my brothers and sisters that we have a divine mandate to make peace, to seek peace and to live peace. This does not mean that we are blind to credible electoral processes, but what we are telling everybody is that peace is a condition without which you cannot achieve a credible and integrity of elections,” said Bishop Anyolo.
“If our elections will not be of integrity then we cannot pretend to have a legitimate outcome and provide the winners with legitimacy, neither the losers with confidence,” he added.
Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit head of the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) on his part told those in leadership, and who will assume leadership after 8 August, that “a nation can only in peace when it is established upon justice and fairness.
“It is our prayer that those managing our elections this year will manage it in openness, fairness and justly,” he said adding, “our focus of peace should not be the 8th of August ,it should be an everyday endeavor.”
Speaking during the same event Al Hajj Yussuf Marugi from National Muslim Leaders noted that to have leaders of integrity, “all of us as individuals must have integrity because individuals make the community and the leaders come from us.”
The Multi-Sectoral Forum has been convened by religious leaders from different faiths to dialogue and prepare the country for the elections.
The forum includes the civil society organizations, trade unions, women constituency, disability constituency and Mkenya Daima.
