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{
    "id": 716505,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/716505/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 337,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Musila",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 94,
        "legal_name": "David Musila",
        "slug": "david-musila"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, I thank you for giving me this opportunity. I oppose this Bill for a few reasons. One, the law which is proposed to be amended was a product of negotiation by a Joint Committee. You were on that Chair when you ruled that not even a comma should be inserted in amending the Bill. Mr. Speaker, Sir, only a few weeks after the law was assented to, we woke up in the morning to find the police barricading Parliament, and when we asked why, we were told that there was a Special Sitting of the National Assembly to amend that law, in a partisan manner. This was an act of intimidation, which should not be allowed in this country at this time. Our argument on this side of the House is that since the Bill in question is a product of negotiations in a bipartisan manner, it follows, therefore, that if ever the need to amend any part of the law was necessary, the matter should have been referred to the same Committee, negotiated and agreed upon. Mr. Speaker, Sir, some of us have been around for many years. I want to tell this House that every election since Independence has been marred by allegations of rigging. This explains why, in the wisdom of the Joint Committee, they chose to put electronic voting as a requisite for getting rid of this primitive practice. The Electronic Voter Identification Device (EVID) does not need any network as it has been argued. I understand that if the battery is charged, it last for eight hours and does not require any backup. More so, even the Results Transmission System (RTS) requires network, but where there is no network, satellites exist. In fact, IEBC has hundreds of satellite phones for this purpose. I want to submit that going manual in this election is a recipe for chaos in this country. This chaos may even be more serious than the ones we witnessed in 2007. Why should we revert to manual voting at this point in time? The Kriegler Report which has been referred to here, identified manual voting as the cause of the violence that we witnessed in 2007 which almost brought this country to civil war. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}