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{
    "id": 52033,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/52033/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 425,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "The Assistant Minister for Tourism (",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "Ms. Mbarire): Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Bill that is in front of us. I want to congratulate the Ministry of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs, the CIC and all the stakeholders that have played a role in putting together this Bill. The setting up of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission is very critical. As you all know, one of the things that Kenyans cried about through the years as we moved from one election to another was to have an independent commission and also that had teeth to bite. As I look at this Bill, I feel that these two issues have been sorted out to some extent. It is important that we look into them and ensure that we truly have a clearly independent Electoral Commission and also one that has teeth to bite. As I look at some of the clauses in the Bill, they state that one of the roles of the Electoral Commission will be investigation and prosecution of electoral offences by candidates, political parties or their agents. You know that one of the biggest challenges that we have with our electoral system is that electoral offences are committed and nothing is done to the perpetrators of those offences. That alone is not enough and that is why I agree with the former speaker that we need to be very clear about these offences. That is why the Electoral Offences Bill needs to have come together with this particular Bill, so that we are very clear on these particular offences and we know the punishment to expect in the event that these offences are committed. I want to be very tough on this. I am very sure that part of the rigging that has happened in the past and why we end up in trouble all the time and have wars like we encountered after the 2007 General Election was because people were vested with power to oversee elections and they did things without fear and with impunity because they knew that they would be taken nowhere. In this Bill and in the Electoral Offences Bill, there is more focus on the electoral offences committed by candidates. What happens when these offences are committed by the Commissioners or the staff of the Electoral Commission? You know that right at the grassroots level, we have the Returning Officers and the Presiding Officers, who are the most notorious officers in any rigging. I do not think there is any rigging that can take place in any part of this country without the direct involvement of the Returning and the Presiding officers. I would like to see some serious action and effort put into how to deal with the staff of the Electoral Commission. How do you deal with the Commissioners when they commit electoral offences like they did to us in the last general election? They went scot-free. Nobody talks about them anymore, yet they caused bloodshed in the whole country. How do you deal with them? How do you deal with the Returning Officers and Presiding Officers who tampered with Form 16A? That is very important and we need to come up with a clear code of conduct that should be signed by these particular officers. I want to reiterate hon. Karua’s comments yesterday where she said that we must have very severe penalties for these officers, so that an officer who commits an electoral offence, whether he is a Commissioner or a member of staff, a permanent staff in the Commission or on contractual basis during elections, for example, the Returning Officers, should lose his or her job. If you are a Civil Servant, you should not hold any public office for ten years. That will help to deter officers from committing electoral offences."
}