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{
    "id": 1237635,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1237635/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 398,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Millie Odhiambo-Mabona",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. I also want to thank Hon. Ichung’wah for welcoming me at my usual time when we actually do serious business. I do not normally come when people are doing the Any Other Business (AOB). It is only in the Parliament of Kenya where we start with AOB, and then deal with the business of the day much later. Therefore, as a lawyer by training, I know the right time to come in. I know this is the time when we do business. Beyond that, he was my former Chairman in the Budget and Appropriations Committee (BAC). As the Leader of the Majority Party, he must know that BAC is sitting the whole day. I am a very committed Member of the House since I have sat the whole day, but still had time to be here. Having said that, let me take this opportunity to support the Report by the Head of the Delegation of the Pan-African Parliament, Hon. Mukami, on the proceedings of the First Ordinary Session of the Sixth Pan African Parliament. Hon. Temporary Speaker, as you have said, I am a former Member of the Pan African Parliament. Therefore, I understand a bit of the proceedings. I have seen that the Report on the main plenary focuses a lot on the issue of conflict and unconstitutional regime changes in Africa. It makes very serious recommendations; including early warning. As a continent, it is important to check on what bedevils us, and why these changes are becoming very common. We might be slackening on the issue of governance and that could be one of the things that we need to check as a continent. The Report also talks about the need for continued election monitoring in countries where there is election monitoring. Courtesy of the Pan African Parliament, I had an opportunity to monitor elections in a few countries. I noticed that one of the things that causes these conflicts is Africans’ late reaction to changes. For instance, when I was in Zambia for election monitoring, everything looked okay. This is because of the kind of questionnaire that you are given for monitoring. The questionnaire assesses things like; what time did people start the election? Was there violence and did people have a chance to vote uninterrupted? But that is not how elections are rigged in Africa anymore. Elections are rigged digitally and there is no system to monitor digital stealing of elections. Until in Africa, we reach a point where we are able to monitor digital rigging of elections, we will still have challenges as a continent. Therefore, I want to urge the Pan African Parliament the next time they are talking about this, they should look at how we can confront the issue of digitisation of elections because that is where the problem is. The problem is no longer about whether people… I was in Ghana, people voted very well and there was no issue. Usually, there is an issue of post-election of transmission of elections. So, this is where we should look at and how to monitor a digitised system of elections. I am very disappointed with the development partners who were here 40 or 60 years ago, when we did not have digitised systems. They look at the way people walk in and vote but not how we can monitor the transmitted results. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I can tell you as a matter of fact that I won by a very huge margin, but still part of my election was rigged. I only left because I beat my opponent by a very big margin. So, I did not want to go on about it. I have written in my book Rig or be"
}