Uhuru, Raila Only Qualifiers for Next Month's Presidential Debates

The organizers of the 2017 presidential debate have spelt out tough conditions on who will be allowed to take part in this year’s events, indicating that several aspirants will be locked out of the debates.

The Media Owners on Thursday said that only candidate who command at least five per cent in the opinion polls will be allowed to debate in the forum, meaning that this year’s debates will be limited to the two main front runners, locking out those considered as ‘jokers’ in the race.

In a statement, the Debates Media, a consortium of Major media housed revealed that those who score less than five per cent in the pollsters will be placed in a different pool.

"Candidates with less than five percent popular support in opinion polls will take part in separate single pool debates to be conducted on the same dates," read the statement in part.

If the guidelines will be followed, President Uhuru Kenyatta of Jubilee and National Super Alliance (NASA) candidate Raila Odinga will be the only automatic entrants in the debates.

Following the trends of the recent opinion pollsters, the rest of the candidates cleared by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) will be facing an uphill task in gathering the minimum threshold.

Cyrus Jirongo of United Democratic Party (UDP), Ekuru Aukot (Thirdway Alliance), Abduba Dida (Alliance for Real Change), and Independent candidates; Joseph Nyagah , Michael Wainaina and Japheth Kavinga are the other candidates in the race for the country’s highest office.

Two debates will be held on 10th and 24th of July at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa.