Kenya’s highest court began Tuesday weighing a legal bid to revive government plans to shake up the country’s political system, just months ahead of crucial elections, IgbereTV reports.
The Supreme Court ruling on the proposed constitutional changes, expected after three days of hearings this week, may have major consequences for the August 9 presidential and parliamentary polls.
The government is seeking to overturn court rulings that had dealt a blow to President Uhuru Kenyatta and his allies by rejecting the reforms and the way they were introduced as unconstitutional.
The so-called Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) aims to expand the executive and overturn the winner-takes-all electoral system blamed for frequent explosions of poll-related violence in the East African nation.
But Kenyatta’s detractors see it as little more than a naked grab for power by a two-term president who cannot run a third time, with the BBI potentially allowing him to assume a new post of prime minister
