Nairobi — President William Ruto will on Tuesday tighten the list of nominees set to join the East African legislative assembly (EALA) ahead of the vote before the National Assembly on Thursday.
President Ruto will chair the coalition's parliamentary group meeting which will scale down the 15 nominees to five which are the slots available for the coalition.
Sources have intimated that the final list of the five nominees will be revealed before the legislators where members will be asked to support it.
"President Ruto will chair the meeting whose main agenda is to align our troops behind five nominees this is despite the intense lobbying that is going on ahead of the vote on Thursday," the source mentioned.
In an expected move, the Head of State will dish out the slots to the aggrieved allies in his coalition who missed out in the list of Cabinet Secretary (CS) and Principal Secretary (PS) appointments.
Ex-Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar is among the nominees who are expecting to be shortlisted after missing out on the list of 51 principal secretaries.
Having lost the bid to become Mombasa governor, it is expected that he will be rewarded with an EALA slot.
Former Kisii senatorial candidate Okeng'o Nyambane who ditched his ambitions in favor of the then gubernatorial candidate Ezekiel Machogu, currently Education CS is deemed to make it to the list of five.
Inside sources have revealed that President Ruto had promised to appoint Nyambane in his cabinet but having missed a slot in the cabinet, Nyambane might be appeased with an EALA position.
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To enhance regional balance, the Turkana woman representative seat under UDA ticket Rebecca Merikeju will land the EALA job given that the community has not been well represented in Ruto's administration.
Former United Republican Party (URP) Secretary General Fred Muteti was hopeful that he would land a government job having dropped his bid in the Makueni constituency race.
Having lost in the list of Cabinet Secretaries and Principal Secretaries appointments he is expected to land in the final EALA list.
Former nominated senator Falhada Iman having worked closely with President Ruto's wing in the divided Jubilee party by remaining adamant in joining his bandwagon .
On Wednesday, Majority Leader in the National Assembly and his counterpart from the Senate Aaron Cheruyoit narrowed down its list of 145 candidates seeking the EALA seats to 15.
Anne Too, the first born daughter of former long serving Criminal Investigations Department Director the late Noah Arap Too was among the 15 nominees.
Nominated Senator David Sankok (Narok) and Former Balambala Abdikadir Aden(Garissa) were among the nominees.
Former Nandi Women Rep Zipporah Kering, Former Saboti constituency aspirant Jonas Kuko, Former Igembe Central MP Cyprian Kubai, Former West Pokot Woman Representative Lilian Cheptoo were also battling it out for the EALA slots.
Godfrey Maina Karobia (Muranga),Yasser Ali Sheikh(Mombasa) and Salim Mohammed Busidy (Lamu) have also been listed.
The President William Ruto- led coalition have five slots to fill to the regional legislative assembly.
