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{
"id": 1480911,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1480911/?format=api",
"text_counter": 144,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 170,
"legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
"slug": "bonny-khalwale"
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"content": "even in the best of ideas, there is always time and room for those ideas to yield ground to better ideas. I, therefore, support these amendments and insist that, never should we allow the outcome of any election in this country to be decided by the people who count votes and announce the results. The outcome must be decided by the people who vote. I can speak with a degree of authority. I was looking at the book by the Hon. Millie Odhiambo about rigging or being rigged out, and in a way, I was thinking about myself because I have gone through it all. I remember I won an election fairly and squarely in 2007 and because of lack of this kind of scrutiny, I was returned to a by- election. The grounds were that a brother of my opponent sat in a corner in a polling station and was recording what he thought was the result, while IEBC was doing its work. So, when we went to court, I was a respondent and IEBC were co-respondents. The court just decided to agree with the person who was taking some funny notes in a corner. I was returned to an election. I remember Dr. Oburu Odinga, the former Prime Minister, hon. Raila Odinga, his deputy, hon. Musalia Mudavadi, Minister then, Hon. Oparanya, Minister then, Dr. Otuoma, Minister then, Hon. Ababu and Minister then, Prof. Anyang’-Nyongo’ all converged in Ikolomani, just to teach me a lesson. It was very exciting that when we defeated them, we now widened the margin. So, we have to continue tightening these things, but then, what a shame. I know that you, Madam Temporary Speaker, are experienced in these things. I have seen elections in Ghana and you will see an election official carrying results on their heads, in a carton, going to some central place where they return those forms and nothing happens to them and people believe in the outcome. What is wrong with our country that even with this Act that we made in 2016, we still must tighten and tighten even further? There is something wrong about our very integrity as individuals who conduct elections and as individuals who present our names as candidates. We do not believe in anything, so much so, that I am yet to meet a single person who lost an election and says that he lost an election. They always say, “ kurayangu iliibiwa.” I have never understood. Therefore, the amendments must ensure that, as the courts decided, elections end at the polling station. I support this because this is a march towards tightening that ending to truly end at polling stations. Madam Temporary Speaker, what do I mean? The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has structured most of the polling stations, so that around 500 people vote at a stream, presided over by a presiding officer. So how does it come to pass in this country that counting 500 votes can take two or three days? I have never understood. I have even done an exercise of, supposing I was a presiding officer, and there were three candidates, and they have all benefited from these 500 voters. So, I direct someone to hold the votes for Candidate One, Candidate Two, and Candidate Three — the process of dishing out which candidate got which votes should not take more than 30 minutes. Then, the actual counting should not take more than five minutes because to count from one up to 500, you do not need hours. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}