A row is brewing in ODM over the planned grassroots elections of officials for Homa Bay after members of the coordinating committee disagreed with some party officials over the exercise.

The committee leadership have differed with the acting ODM Chairman in Homa Bay County Hamilton Orata over the list of delegates who will participate in the elections on Monday and Wednesday next week.

The election will be done to elect ward and Constituency officials.

Orata said several party members in a number of polling stations had complained that the lists of delegates appearing in the party website was different from the list of delegates who were elected at polling stations on November 27 last year.

The acting chairman urged ODM National Elections Board (NEB) to address members’ complaints before it conducts the elections next week. He said failure to address the issues may taint reputation of the party.

But Homa Bay County ODM Party Elections Co-ordinating Committee Chairperson Mary Opiyo and the Secretary Daniel Ogenga accused Orata of causing unnecessary controversy in the party.

He argued that Orata is raising the complaints late after delegates elections were done more than four months ago.

She said anybody who had issues with the election of the polling stations delegates ought to have channeled their grievances immediately after the polls.

“We conducted elections at polling stations in November last year but nobody raised any complaints over the list of delegates. It is unfortunate that some people are raising complaints today when are going to conduct elections,” Opiyo said.

She argued that any complaints being raised today should not be listened to.

“It is unfortunate that they are raising complaints when we are about to start our elections. Where were they when people were lodging complaints?,” Opiyo said.

She urged Orata to raise the grievances formally with the party National Elections Board.

“Let him follow the right procedure,” Opiyo said.

Ogenga argued that Orata should have expressed his grievances through the right party organ before raising the complaints in the media.

“We expected our acting chairman to have a conversation with the party elections board before going to the media,” Ogenga said.

He argued that they conducted the election in a credible and peaceful manner.

“I know of Malela polling station in Ndhiwa Constituency where youth caused violence and disrupted the election. Otherwise the election was done peacefully in the remaining polling stations across the county,” Ogenga said.

He promised residents of credible elections.