HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, POST, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"count": 1608389,
"next": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/?format=api&page=138986",
"previous": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/?format=api&page=138984",
"results": [
{
"id": 1406261,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406261/?format=api",
"text_counter": 187,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Uasin Gishu County, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Gladys Boss",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Hon. Temporary Speaker, we then had the Kriegler Commission, which probably had the most in-depth review of our elections infrastructure that includes our election operations, our voter registration, our voter management system, and our register. Based on that, the new format of election management in Kenya was born. So, it was not by default. It was based on the Kriegler Commission. I was privileged and honoured to be part of the team that implemented the Kriegler Commission Report. That is where the whole issue of having biometric registration began, the reason being that the Kriegler Commission found that our register used to have dead voters. There is, really, nothing wrong with having dead voters on a register. The problem in Kenya was that the dead voters would, in fact, vote. So, the biometric process of registration and identification of voters was intended to ensure that only those who walk physically to polling stations would vote. So it is not by mistake that we review our election management system. Then, in 2010, during the first management of the elections, particularly during the referendum, it was realised that the electronic vote transmission system became overloaded. It was after that that we reviewed the problem and undertook to ensure that we had a better system next time. So, the system must keep improving. That is why we have the original Mercedes- Benz and the latest Mercedes-Benz. Systems must continue to be evaluated. Therefore, let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that there is something wrong with us because we review our election management system and our election laws. In 2013, the court pronounced itself on where the final announcement of the result should be made. It was then said that the final result would be announced at the polling station. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor"
},
{
"id": 1406262,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406262/?format=api",
"text_counter": 188,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Uasin Gishu County, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Gladys Boss",
"speaker": null,
"content": "It was because of experiences. That is why we changed our laws to say that the results announced at the polling stations would be the final result. Also, other systems were later introduced, like having a maximum of 700 voters at a polling station. One of the ways of corrupting the electoral system used to be manipulation of the numbers at polling stations where you could have 10,000 people at a polling station. Of course, they would not all vote, which means you actually disenfranchise people. Because of that, again, I was part of the team that learnt that lesson and determined that the number of people who should vote at a polling station should be a maximum of 700. That decision was arrived at scientifically. It takes five minutes for each person to vote. In a day, you have 720 minutes. Therefore, you can only have 144 people voting between Six O'clock in the morning and Five O'clock in the evening. If you put six polling booths, six clerks and six processing clerks, what happens is that you will have six people voting at the same time. Therefore, you come to the figure of 700. So, it is a science. We only learnt that and improved our law from experience. Therefore, I encourage that we constantly keep looking at our laws. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I will now look at three other items. Having given the historical background and evolution of our electoral system, I will now look at three aspects. One, I do not agree with the proposal that a CEO should serve for a term of three years. It is too short. One only becomes an election expert by the number of times they conduct elections. It is like telling me that somebody becomes an expert surgeon by operating patients for only three years. If we want to build a cadre of electoral experts, they have to serve for a long time. Yes, I agree that the Commission must have a limited time but for the technical staff, at least for a CEO, they should serve three election cycles to make sense. In fact, I belong to the electoral network called Bridge, where you constantly go and observe elections, attend trainings and exchange notes where people teach others what happened in their own countries and so on. So, if you have a CEO for three years, my God! I do not know how he is going to run the elections. That is a very bad amendment. The danger is more in a commissioner staying longer and not a CEO, who is a technical staff. Today if you go to the Electoral Commission, the constituency election coordinators have probably done three election cycles because the first group was hired when I was there in 2010. You find that they get better with time. All we do is just keep changing them so that they are not serving in the same station. If you look at the directors that are there, they have become better and better with time. Even now, we must ask ourselves, if we hire commissioners today, will those commissioners be experts enough to run the elections in 2027? The people who manage the elections are the technical staff. They are the ones who understand voter education, voter registration, management of the register and the IT systems. So, you cannot have a turnover of CEOs. I welcome the change that has been made to define who the chairperson is. This is in tandem with Article 250. It also aligns with the Katiba Institute case, which clearly said no other person can be chairperson. On the issue of enlargement of the selection panel, it makes sense and I support that amendment. Lastly, the removal of delimitation of boundaries from the Schedule to the substantive Act is a welcome move because it does not make sense to have it as a Schedule. Most importantly, the census follows the delimitation of boundaries because there is no other basis for delimitation of boundaries except via census. I agree with the rest of the amendments except for the term of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker."
},
{
"id": 1406263,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406263/?format=api",
"text_counter": 189,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Farah Maalim",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": {
"id": 16,
"legal_name": "Farah Maalim Mohamed",
"slug": "farah-maalim"
},
"content": " Hon. Milemba. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor"
},
{
"id": 1406264,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406264/?format=api",
"text_counter": 190,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Emuhaya, ANC",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Omboko Milemba",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me this chance to comment on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (Amendment) Bill (National Assembly Bill No.10 of 2024). First, let me thank the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs for their good job of bringing this Bill to the Floor of the House. Many Kenyans have been waiting for the passage of this Bill, especially those aspiring for electoral positions that arose from the death of their Members of Parliament or Members of County Assembly. Those electoral units have not had a chance to hold elections because the IEBC has not had commissioners to oversee the elections. I want to, again, express confidence in this Parliament. As the immediate previous speaker said, we should continue reviewing our electoral laws and processes after every election. The growth of any democracy and democratic space in the world has been through amendment of the election laws. In the United States of America (USA), which is considered one of the most democratic places in the world, growth of electoral laws began with the founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and James Madison. The current electoral process in the USA is completely different from what it was. It went through all those processes, including the great debate of Lincoln versus Douglas, a one-on-one debate that became the template for presidential debates today. They were borrowed from the Douglas-Lincoln debate in the USA. Therefore, these processes grow. Each time we get a chance to amend our election laws, we should count ourselves privileged and do the very best we can to ensure that the next election is better managed than the previous one. We should fill any gaps that were experienced in the previous election. The Deputy Speaker, who spoke before me gave many examples. I will pick only one example in the Kenyan electoral situation. When we had election challenges during the Moi era in 1992, we had the Inter-Parties Parliamentary Group ( IPPG ) initiative – political negotiations which resulted in major changes in our country’s election laws – to make sure that all those who wanted to participate in subsequent elections were included so that they could take ownership of the process. That in itself was growth. I do not know if the Members in this House remember the mlolongo elections that were conducted in 1988. I do not know if Members remember how flawed they were. Voters were required to queue behind the agents of the candidates they were voting for. However, candidates with the longest queues of supporters ended up not being announced winners of the elections because of what was going on with our politics then. Therefore, a continuous change of our electoral laws is paramount. It must take place, so that we get a better election process. Let me now speak about only three issues contained in this Bill beginning with the fact that it brings to bear the recommendations of the National Dialogue Committee Report. I appeared before the NADCO to represent the Kenya Kwanza Coalition. It was a very important process because it brought calmness to this country. Everybody believed that with the NADCO process, all the political players would come to the table and agree on the way forward. That is why we have calmness in the country today. We must vividly remember as Parliament that the"
},
{
"id": 1406265,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406265/?format=api",
"text_counter": 191,
"type": "scene",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "maandamano"
},
{
"id": 1406266,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406266/?format=api",
"text_counter": 192,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Emuhaya, ANC",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Omboko Milemba",
"speaker": null,
"content": "that were going on at that time ceased. Therefore, the views that were given by the public and other stakeholders during the NADCO proceedings cannot be left out of this process. The best thing to do is to assemble them in the form of a Bill so that they are accommodated in the laws of the country. Therefore, as we make these changes, I want to hail the Bill for accommodating the NADCO Report and the proposals by Kenyans. We are representatives of the people and everything we do is born out of the supremacy of the people as per Article 1 of the Constitution because they hold the sovereign power. Secondly, I want to hail this Bill for bringing to bear a process that will put in place the IEBC commissioners fast enough. However, away from that, I also hail it for ensuring that we avoid the constitutional crisis we almost had whereby we were supposed to delimit the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor"
},
{
"id": 1406267,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406267/?format=api",
"text_counter": 193,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Emuhaya, ANC",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Omboko Milemba",
"speaker": null,
"content": "constituency boundaries within a period of eight to 12 years. We could not do that because we did not have the IEBC commissioners. That will now be solved. That will be a reprieve for many Kenyans, and more so those constituencies that are suffering under the fear that they were possibly protected and are likely to lose their places if this process is not undertaken. That is why I support this Bill. This is a very good process which will deal with the matter of delimitation of boundaries and constituencies. There is the issue of the Chairperson of the Commission, which this Bill has been very particular on. I support the Bill in totality because the drama we saw during the last election should never be repeated in this country. The Bill is adopting the High Court ruling in the case of Katiba Institute & 3 others v Attorney General & 2 others (2018). There was a law which described the Chairperson of the IEBC to include the vice-chairperson and any other commissioner who may appear in the event that the chairperson is not present. That was very dangerous for any election process. It exposed this country and the election process to a situation whereby one can even kidnap the chairperson and bring in another person who can then announce what he or she wants as the results of that election. Furthermore, it also showed that we could even remove the vice-chairperson and any other commissioner could then appear and announce the results. This Bill has hailed that ruling and properly defined the chairperson as being the chairperson and not any other person, including the vice-chairperson. No one can take the place of the chairperson, including the vice-chairperson or any other commissioner who purports that he or she can also be the chairperson. Kenyans chose one person as the chairperson of the Commission for a reason. The trust, rigorous interviews and aspects of training that were required of the chairperson were not the same as those that were required of the vice-chairperson. This will bring an end to the drama we saw in this country during the last election with Commissioner Cherera and the rest. This is a good Bill. That is why I keep saying that the election process must continuously be changed and reviewed so that it gets better with the hope of attaining the infinity of perfection. Hon. Temporary Speaker, there is also the issue of additional members of the IEBC. The Bill proposes two additional commissioners so that we move from seven to nine commissioners. This is also very good because it increases the space and leverage of operation of the Commission. It also brings to bear more minds and technical people who can assist. The Bill has gone ahead to indicate the specific areas that require more assistance. These are ICT and accounting. How often do we hear that electoral materials have not been procured because of one reason or another? We saw the gaps we had in the ICT section which remain one of the most disturbing issues in the election processes. Hon. Temporary Speaker, as I conclude, I thank you for giving me this chance to contribute. Given that my time is over, I support the Bill."
},
{
"id": 1406268,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406268/?format=api",
"text_counter": 194,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Farah Maalim",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": {
"id": 16,
"legal_name": "Farah Maalim Mohamed",
"slug": "farah-maalim"
},
"content": " Hon. Caroli Omondi."
},
{
"id": 1406269,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406269/?format=api",
"text_counter": 195,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Suba South, ODM",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Caroli Omondi",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Speaker. I have a problem with my card. I was among the first Members to step into the House. Unfortunately, my card could not indicate on the dashboard. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute. I have looked at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (Amendment) Bill and I am a little underwhelmed. Even if it is a National Dialogue Committee product, there are some serious issues."
},
{
"id": 1406270,
"url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406270/?format=api",
"text_counter": 196,
"type": "scene",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "(Hon. Owen Baya consulted several Members along the gangway)"
}
]
}