Voters in Machakos county will have a chance to re-elect a new senator on March 23, the IEBC has said in a gazette notice.
All political parties intending to participate in the by-election will be required to submit names of the candidates before Monday, January 4.
At the same time, parties intending to present candidates through direct nominations will be required to do so before Monday, January 18.
The nominations of political party candidates will be held on Monday, January 25 and Tuesday, January 26 with the nomination papers expected before four o’clock on the same dates.
The campaigns will begin on Monday, January 25 and lapse on Saturday, March 20, 48 hours to the by-election.
The Machakos senate seat fell vacant following the death of Senator Boniface Mutinda.
He had been admitted at the Nairobi Hospital after he allegedly fell ill while with a woman at an apartment in Nairobi’s Kilimani estate.
The lawmaker is reported to have checked in at the apartment along Elgeyo Marakwet Road in Kilimani on December 3 afternoon accompanied by a woman identified as Esther Muli, a resident of Wote town.
A police report was madecby the Senator’s wife who said that at around 3am she was informed by an employee at the lawmaker’s office that her husband had been admitted in the ICU.
“She went to the said hospital accompanied by other family members among them her co-wife where she established that the Senator was brought by paramedics after falling sick while in an apartment along Elgeyo Marakwet Road within Kilimani,” read the police report.
Police visited the scene and found the woman who disclosed that she was with the Senator in the apartment when he suddenly started complaining of severe headache and asked her to look for paracetamols.
She added that the pain worsened, and she reportedly informed the management who called for an ambulance and rushed the lawmaker to Nairobi Hospital.
Esther Muli, the woman who was with the Senator at the time of the incident, was arrested and arraigned in court before later being released on a personal bond after tests showed no traces of poison on the deceased’s blood.
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