Former Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President Nelson Havi has called for immediate elections to replace National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula following a High Court ruling on February 7, 2025, that declared his dual role as Speaker and Ford Kenya party leader unconstitutional.

In the landmark ruling, the High Court bench comprising Justices Jairus Ngaah, John Chigiti, and Lawrence Mugambi determined that Wetangula ceased to be the party leader of Ford Kenya the moment he became the Speaker, ruling that his party leadership undermines his role in the Assembly.

In a strongly worded statement posted on his X account on February 8, 2025, Havi argued that Wetangula’s position as Speaker became invalid upon the delivery of the court’s judgment.

“Moses Wetangula ceased being speaker upon delivery of the judgment declaring his dual position of Speaker of the National Assembly and Party Leader of Ford-Kenya as unlawful and unconstitutional,” Havi said.

He reiterated his call for a new speaker to be elected to replace Wetangula.

“A competent speaker should be elected without any further delay,” Havi stated.

Biased decisions

People’s Liberation Party (PLP) leader Martha Karua joined in criticizing Wetangula, accusing him of making biased rulings favouring the ruling Kenya Kwanza coalition.

“Speaker Wetang’ula should not have continued to head a political party once he assumed the Speaker’s role in Parliament. That is a seat that should be independent and impartial,” Karua said during an interview with a local media station on February 7, 2025.

She specifically referenced Wetangula’s ruling regarding majority party status in Parliament.

“You can see that as a member of the Kenya Kwanza Alliance, he gave a ruling that was incorrect, and I would dare say deliberately, and that was partial to the Kenya Kwanza Alliance,” she added.

Karua insisted that Wetangula must now choose between his roles.

“If the Kenya Kwanza Alliance, and in particular Speaker Moses Wetang’ula, are believers in the rule of law, he should choose whether to be speaker or the leader of Ford Kenya; he can’t have both, and he must choose moving forward, being impartial, not Kenyans seeing him atop a vehicle campaigning for a coalition that is in parliament and making rulings that are questionable,” Karua emphasized.

Court ruling

On February 7, 2025, the Milimani High Court ruled that the Azimio coalition holds the majority in the National Assembly.

In delivering the ruling, Justices John Chigiti, Lawrence Mugambi, and Jairus Ngaah noted that Wetangula had violated the Constitution by making misleading determinations regarding the majority status.

“It is hereby declared that the question of which party or coalition is the majority in the National Assembly of the 13th Parliament was determined by the sovereign will of the Kenyan voters during the August 9, 2022, general elections,” part of the ruling stated.

According to the court, Wetangula had assigned 14 members from various parties to Kenya Kwanza on October 6, 2022, to bolster its majority status.

He had declared Kenya Kwanza as having 179 members in the House versus Azimio’s 157. However, documents from the Registrar of Political Parties contradicted Wetangula’s declaration, revealing that Azimio had 26 political parties compared to Kenya Kwanza’s 15.

The judges also found that the Speaker lacked a justifiable basis for reassigning members to Kenya Kwanza.

“The Speaker cannot fault the Registrar of Political Parties. She could not provide what she did not have. The Speaker ought to have presented the agreements that were allegedly submitted during the debate; without these post-election coalition agreements, he had no basis for his claims,” part of the ruling asserted.