The United Nations (UN) has cancelled a high-profile meeting of the United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids) that was supposed to be held in Nairobi on October 10th and 11th due to high political temperatures in the country.
The global body was supposed to hold its annual convention in Nairobi to launch what they call the Prevention 2020 Roadmap; a results-based plan for improving prevention programmes and lowering the rates of new infections.
State House Spokesman Manoah Esipisu on Sunday stated: “On Thursday last week, Cabinet was informed that UNAids had now cancelled Kenya’s hosting of a global prevention coalition meeting scheduled for Nairobi on October 10 - 11, informed by the perception of uncertainty."
The move was most likely informed by the stand-off between Jubilee and the National Super Alliance(NASA) ahead of the October 26th elections.
NASA has scheduled a series of peaceful countrywide demonstrations to call for major changes at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission(IEBC), with the resignation of Chief Executive Ezra Chiloba at the top of their list.
They have also demanded that French digital security firm IDEMIA (formerly OT-Morpho) and Dubai-based printing firm Al Ghurair be blacklisted form the upcoming election.
On Saturday, at a funeral in Vihiga county, NASA principal Musalia Mudavadi sensationally claimed that Ezra Chiloba had signed an inflated deal with IDEMIA on Thursday night.
Jubilee, on the other hand, are fronting various changes to electoral laws in Parliament with a view to having them in effect before the fresh presidential election.
The proposed changes could see the IEBC chairman lose powers to exclusively conduct meetings and make key decisions with the quorum lowered to three and any commissioner allowed to chair meetings.
Among the proposed changes tabled by Majority leader Aden Duale is a clause that will put in place a manual transmission system to work alongside the electronic transmission currently in use. The manually-transmitted results will, however, be considered final.
