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{
"id": 1480941,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1480941/?format=api",
"text_counter": 174,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13162,
"legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
"slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
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"content": "and say that, “we the Abasuba, Luo or the Kikuyu are many, and so we are going to take the next election.” In the last conversation, there was the Building Bridges Initiative. It was bastardized, it was shot down in the courts of law for lack of public participation but there were some interesting proposals. I recall a proposal that came from the Governor of Kisumu, who is currently the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) interim party leader. He had a proposal that we cannot take these Western systems in their entirety. Let us try and build a home-grown solution where it is not a winner-take-all-all approach, first pass the post or an alliance of tribes. Our election has been an alliance of tribes. It has been described in many words. There have been share-holding structures and all sorts of conversations and nomenclature to our politics. It is wrong because it pits communities and tribes against each other. Our politics becomes a game of chess where the antagonists are one tribe versus the other. We must rethink our electoral system, but this is going to take a very radical rethink, because when it suits those in power, then they are in no rush to change it. It is only when it does not suit them that they want to change it. This conversation has been there from Independence and this is the conversation that brought the dichotomy between KADU and KANU. It was never settled because we opted for a broad-based government at Independence, the way we have opted for a broad-based government today. As a result, two years later, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was kicked out. They say history repeats itself. I do not know which one comes first, as fast or as tragedy, but history truly repeats itself. The things we saw in 1965 have come back to haunt us in the year 2024. The things we saw post-independence because of flawed politics of ethnicity, have come back to haunt us today. As I conclude, I want to encourage the House that Parliament has a responsibility to scrutinise the report of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). That report should never be limited to mundane bureaucratic matters. I have gone to the IEBC website. Recently, in my usual visits to my county, I like going to a polling station and telling my people that in this polling station, you gave me 90 per cent of the vote and I want to thank you for that. In the past, the IEBC had a portal, where you could go, click, zoom and go all the way granular to a polling station. You could tell the presidential, gubernatorial, senatorial and the constituency results at that point in time. Madam Temporary Speaker, that stopped happening, and yet we are advancing more. We are more capable of manipulating big data. Ten years ago, the IEBC had that portal. Today, ten years later, when artificial intelligence, big data, data warehouses have advanced, we do not have that visibility. Today, if you are to ask how many votes you got across your respective counties, you cannot get it unless you go and look at that declaration form. We must push the IEBC to be transparent and accountable to the people of Kenya. The results of elections should not be held as a secret. We are not running a cult. We are running an open, free and fair electoral system. 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."
}