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{
"id": 1494694,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1494694/?format=api",
"text_counter": 411,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Omogeni",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13219,
"legal_name": "Erick Okong'o Mogeni",
"slug": "erick-okongo-mogeni"
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"content": "We did not get everything that we wanted as the Azimio la Umoja–One Kenya Coalition Party and I am also sure that there are positions that were not representing the UDA coalition, but they agreed to accommodate in the spirit of give and take. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the spirit in NADCO was to ensure that when we go to the next elections, the person who wins the confidence of Kenyans and garners the majority of votes does not face a contestation in the Supreme Court. We hope that we will reach a situation where we love the person losing an election conducting himself like Biden. In the United States of America (USA), last week, within two days, President Biden who was not a candidate, but whose party, the Democratic Party, had lost an election, placed a call to President Trump who had won through the Republican Party and said, in a democracy there must be a winner and a loser. He welcomed him to the White House so that he can assist in managing the transition. Hon. Senators, I hope that you will support these amendments to the elections laws, which are trying to make it easy, transparent and the path to declaration of a win in a presidential election much easier and more transparent. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, one of the issues that we really fought about was what is Clause 39 of the Bill. In the United States of America, you will start predicting the winner in a presidential election going by results coming from the states. This Bill is proposing that we allow polling stations to have returning officers so that if you are in Ikolomani, by the time we are done with counting and tallying of votes in that polling station, the Returning Officer will give final results and declare the winner from that polling station, so that by midnight, we should be getting results telling us, Sen. Boni Khalwale, if he will be a candidate in 2027 - I do not know whether he has presidential ambitions - has taken Ikolomani. If Sen. Cherarkey will be running for Gen Zs, we are told in Borabu Constituency, Sen. Cherarkey was number three or one. That is the spirit behind these proposed amendments, so that we do not need to wait for the commissioners in Nairobi to tell us who has won in Ikolomani. If in Borabu we have tallied votes from all the polling stations by the close of the day, we should see a 411 telling us that Candidate A has taken Borabu. By the time we wake up in the morning, we should be knowing from all our constituencies, 290 of them, who is leading in a particular constituency. That makes the voting, counting and tallying of results more transparent than what we have now, where you wait for returning officers to walk all the way to Nairobi before the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) can declare who is a winner. Hon. Senators, this is a game-changer in that, even if you want to contest a presidential election you can narrow down to the polling stations that are contested. You do not need to sue the Chairman of the IEBC. You can actually select the few polling stations which are contentious and move to court challenging results on those particular polling stations. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, because of the high stakes in presidential elections, we are making it mandatory that the first election that should be counted and tallied is the presidential election results. So, if we close the voting in a polling station, the first seat that The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only.A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and Audio Services,Senate."
}