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Senators want the electoral process to be transparent, fair and efficient in making a declaration of the presidential election winner.
The senators while making a contribution to the Elections (Amendment) currently at the second reading said they would like a scenario like in the US where the electoral process is very efficient.

The National Dialogue Committee (NADCO) made several recommendations sought to have Section 6 of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Act amended to include experience in information and communication technology and accounting as professional qualifications for appointment as a member of the electoral body.

The report seeks to have the IEBC after every general election review its operations and make the necessary changes required to make its operations more efficient, effective, transparent and accountable.

In addition, the report recommends that Article 138 of the Constitution be amended to clarify on the role of the other commissioners before the Chairperson declares the final Presidential results. Amend the Elections Act, 2011 to provide for processing and declaration of results.

Internal guidelines

“The IEBC shall within three months of its reconstitution develop internal guidelines delineating the administrative and policy responsibilities of the Chairperson and Commissioners and institutional guidelines on administrative and policy functions,” reads part of the report.

While moving the motion, Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot (Kericho) said that the laws should be made more than three years before a general election.

He argued that the electoral agency commissioners will have sufficient time to acquaint themselves with all the provisions of the laws as they prepare to take the country to an election.

“This is one of the National Dialogue Committee (NADCO) Bills that came out of a negotiated dialogue process at the Bomas of Kenya. We had representation from Azimio and Kenya Kwanza, there are many issues that Kenyans raised about our electoral processes when they came and made presentations before us,” said Cheruiyot.

Master stroke

The Kericho Senator said the bill has 39 Clauses addressing many issues that have been of concern to Kenyans and that the legislation is a master stroke since unlike in all other elections from 2017 and 2022 they have struggled in parliament to amend election laws a few months to election.

Cheruiyot said that Parliament has amended election laws two or three months before an election and after election they have gone ahead to fight and ask the IEBC why they did not do certain things.

“If you have an interesting candidate like the President-elect of the United States of America, he did not even wait for other states to declare their results, once it became apparent that he was going to garner the magical 270 Electoral College votes, he went ahead and gave his victory speech. The losing candidate also held back for a while, eventually, in less than 24 hours after the election, she gave her concession speech and life moved on,” said Cheruiyot.

Okongo Omogeni (Nyamira) who seconded the motion said that spirit in NADCO was to ensure that, the person who wins the confidence of Kenyans and garners the majority of votes does not face a contestation in the Supreme Court.

Omogeni while giving the example in US, said he is looking forward when the country elections will be conducted like in the US.
“The Bill is proposing that, we allow polling stations to have returning officers so that by the time they are done with counting and tallying of votes in that polling station. The Returning Officer will give final results and declare the winner from that polling station, so that by midnight, we should be getting results telling us who has won,” said Omogeni.

The Nyamira Senator said that while they have not prescribed the amendments that the IEBC should assist political parties in carrying out nominations time has come for political parties to allow IEBC to conduct their nominations since there are many regions where nominations mean everything where if you win, you are as good as an elected MP.

Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei said that the cost of election in Kenya is very expensive citing that in the last election of 2022, Kenya spent a whopping Sh35.8 billion which translates to Sh 2,000 shillings per vote.

“We must agree that the election business in Kenya should not be a matter of life and death. In the US people voted by mail with those participating accepting results graciously and that the country should have a peaceful transition,” he said.

He went on: “We are aware of what happened in 2007 after elections were tampered with. The problem in this country is lack of trust in the institutions we have. People do not even trust Parliament, the Judiciary and the Executive, it behoves us to trust institutions that the Constitution has established, that is why the cost of election is very high in this country,” said Cherargei.