President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday told Mandera residents to choose local leaders from any party but vote for him in next month’s General Election.
His comments came shortly after one of his rallies was cancelled due to clashes between rival groups.
The President spoke in Mandera during his second campaign stopover in the northeastern region.
“Everyone has a duty to ask for votes peacefully and it is the voters who will decide who to vote for on August 8,” he said while condemning the chaos that marred his first rally in Takaba in Mandera West.
“It is up to you people to decide who will be your governor, senator, MP, woman representative and others but vote for me as your President,” he said.
The President’s first morning rally in Takaba ended after two rival groups clashed over political supremacy. “We have had chaos due to local politics but everything went on well. Several people have, however, sustained soft tissue injuries,” Mandera West police boss Andrew Muturi told the Nation.
Jubilee Party and Economic Freedom Party leaders are engaged in a supremacy battle in Mandera after Governor Ali Roba disobeyed a decree by elders barring him from seeking re-election. The elders chose to form EFP. He is facing stiff competition from EFP’s Hassan Noor Hassan in the governor’s race.
In Mandera, the second venue, President Kenyatta only delivered his message in a record two minutes. “We are going to open the Kenya-Somalia border so that those in business here can help build the economy of this county,” he said of the border closed in 2012 to lock out al-Shabaab militants.