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{
    "id": 1406330,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406330/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 256,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kisumu West, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Rozaah Buyu",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Hon. Temporary Speaker, I hear many people talking about three years not being enough for a CEO. If the CEO of the IEBC needs more than three years to acclimatise himself with the job, he is not worthy of being in that position. One CEO presided over two elections and began to feel like he was the IEBC. He even began to feel more important than the commissioners themselves. I support this amendment Bill because the IEBC CEO will serve for three years. If he does a good job, he can serve for another three years. In effect, he will only be overseeing one general election. That is good for the country. I also like the fact that the selection panel has been expanded. I heard a few of my colleagues say that when you expand it and bring in more professional bodies, we will be able to judge candidates who want to be commissioners on different aspects. An accountant will see that an applicant has finance skills, or a member of the section panel with a legal background will see that an applicant has a legal mind. The end result will be that the people who will be selected as commissioners will be all-rounded and different professional sectors would have given their nod. Apart from increasing the number of members of the panel, I also like the fact that we are asking the commissioners not to sit pretty and feel like they have already done their part after we have a general election. It is now mandatory for the commissioners to conduct a review of the election in the first year after the election. That review should not be a secret sitting within the Commission, but should be shared publicly so that we know they had the opportunity to see what went wrong, or what might have gone wrong, and how they can rectify the mistakes that may have occurred in the previous election. This is fundamental because once you are a commissioner, you cannot say that one election will be like the next. Different challenges will be experienced during different elections. The commissioners must sit and review the election process to knock off the challenges they experienced and make the next election better. I do not intend to speak for too long, but this is an opportunity for Kenyans to fight to have a free election that will not have people feeling like their victory has been stolen or make other people say that they stole your election, therefore, uta do? This is an opportunity for us to come up with a body that will be full of integrity and that will be governed by steadfast policies to make it better than the other commissions that we have had. We had three commissioners deciding on everything in the previous election. However, this amendment Bill states that there must be, at least, five commissioners for there to be quorum. I am sure it is difficult for five commissioners to all lean on one side. We will have better balance and well-thought-out reasoning from the IEBC. Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker, for that opportunity. Just remember that one woman stood out for me today, and that is Hon. Irene Mayaka."
}