Mombasa governor hopeful Suleiman Shahbal at a past event. [Photo/ the-star.co.ke]
Mombasa governor hopeful Suleiman Shahbal has dismissed independent candidates who recently ditched the Jubilee party, arguing that they are taking advantage of the process.
Shahbal claimed candidates who decamped from ODM are the only genuine independent aspirants as the party does not uphold democracy.
"The term free and fair election does not exist only in the ODM party so anybody running as an independent in ODM has been literally kicked out.
On the Jubilee side, most of those running as independent candidates are people who actually lost in the nominations, so for them to jump onto the independent candidature is just taking advantage of the process,” said Shahbal during an interview on NTV's AMLive show on Monday.
"Those who have lost on our side should join the party and support the winners so we can move forward," he added.
Shahbal, however, noted that it would be unwise for President Uhuru Kenyatta to ignore the large number of independent candidates, and urged him to engage them in a bid to add more votes in his basket in the run up to the August 8 election.
"You cannot ignore the independent candidates. They are leaders who can marshal votes and I would not blame the President for engaging them in anyway,” he added.