Amisi slams parliament for hurrying to approve IEBC officials
By Luke Oluoch, July 29, 2025Saboti lawmaker Caleb Amisi has slammed the National Assembly’s conduct during the vetting exercise to approve the members of the newly reconstituted Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
Speaking during a live TV interview on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, the MP decried the hurried manner in which the process was conducted, as it denied parliamentarians the chance to grill the electoral body nominees
“I wanted to confirm if this is the right person from the IEBC and commit to the nation that we have a person we can believe in. But for the first time, they allowed only five people to speak, and the names were passed after 30 minutes,” he decried.
Amisi stated that the magnitude and importance of the positions begged for the proposed nominees to be subjected to a thorough vetting exercise based on the office they were to assume.
“This is a person who is going to head the electoral commission of Kenya, which will decide the elections of Kenya. The 47 governors, women’s representatives, senators, a deputy president, and a president for the nation, but they only allow for five people to contribute to such a motion, and it passes. What kind of parliament is this? We were not passing a headmaster but an electoral commissioner and the head of the election,” he stressed.
The sentiments of the ODM-allied MP mirror those made by his National Assembly counterpart Joe Nyutu.
The senator also accused the National Assembly of acting under the influence of the Executive and failing to uphold its constitutional role as a watchdog of the people’s interests.
In an statement on Thursday, June 5, 2025, Nyutu said the vetting process was shallow and compromised, claiming members of the National Assembly avoided asking hard-hitting questions to the IEBC nominees due to external pressure.
“The National Assembly has let me down,” Nyutu said. “Not just in the IEBC vetting, but even in other appointments, like Cabinet Secretaries. You know that we have had issues — even the President testified — that CSs who have served in his Cabinet are incompetent. It is an incompetent domain.”
The senator pointed out that while the Constitution mandates Parliament to provide oversight on presidential appointments, recent trends showed a failure by legislators to fulfil this obligation effectively. He questioned the logic of appointments being approved without scrutiny, despite concerns from both the appointing authority and the public.
“If the appointing authority thinks that somebody was incompetent, why did they appoint them in the first place?” he posed.
“And if they appointed them, the National Assembly, who are representatives of the people, why didn’t they see through the incompetence of these particular appointees?