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"id": 52354,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Kioni",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, having said that, I rise to support this Bill. From the outset, I know that we were given some guidance by the Speaker on the issue of the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. I do not want to go back to it because our Standing Orders do not allow us to do that. However, as we dispense the Bill that is before us, it is also important that we ask ourselves at what point will the public have an input in this Bill. This is because in my understanding, members of the public are able to fit into the Bill or inform the process at the Committee stage. Now that we have a Committee that is not functioning, we seem to have denied the public that opportunity to give their thoughts to this process. I do not want to challenge the ruling of the Speaker, but it is important that we move quickly and deal with it. However, it is also important that we make sure that in doing this we do not promote any perceived level of impunity of whatever nature. It is important that this Committee is also sorted out quickly, because it will not be possible for us to move since the Constitution requires that the Committees are involved in this process after the transition period. That way, then it is upon the House to ensure that whenever a Committee has a problem, like it is the case with the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, it is resolved as quickly as possible. I hope that will happen to this Committee because Members are there and we respect them. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is this House that disbanded the former ECK for the good reasons that have been adduced by many before and, perhaps, a little bit earlier. It is us who have the responsibility to quickly put in place an electoral body, in the name of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission as per the new Constitution, so that we can address the issues or ills that befell this country. However, allow me to also recognise the work that has been done by the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) up to where we are. They have conducted quite a number of by-elections and whichever way we would like to look at it, have won the confidence of the majority of Kenyans. Perhaps, it is the only Commission that has continued to win the confidence of Kenyans and in a big way, restored the confidence of this country in the eyes of the international community. It is important to recognize that. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to thank the Minister for Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs for bringing this Bill to the House. There is a proposal that the appointment of commissioners be staggered. It is important that we stagger it, so that they also do not go home at the same time. When we come to the Committee Stage, it will be important that we look at the proposed way of staggering because I think it may require some bit of improvement which we can propose at that stage. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, secondly, the Bill says the Commission will be drawing their funds from the Consolidated Fund. However, there is a provision that allows them to get funds and resources. This is captured under Clause 16. It states that this Commission can also get any grants, gifts, donations and other endowments given to the Commission. While we do not want to close the doors on these kinds of grants, it is important that we, as a House, ensure that this Commission is not left to be run by the international community or foreigners because we may end up giving them more money that can come from our Treasury. This is a problem that we can already start seeing with the commissions that are in place. It is for this reason that when we do an analysis, we find that the commissions have had opportunities to sit with ambassadors or diplomats from other countries. Embassies are able to sit 10 of 15 times, but have no time to sit with Kenyans. In any case, Kenyans take long before they give them any money to run their institutions. That, I think, is a loophole that we need to deal with at the Committee Stage. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the appointment of the CEO is something that we also need to look at. This Bill shifts the management of the process from the commissioners to the secretariat. If that is happening, it is actually that the secretary to the Commission will be the one running the elections in this country. It is my opinion that if that is where authority and power will rest, that office also needs the approval of this House. That is the person who will be running the elections and it is important that he also gets our approval. I think we can look at that at the Committee Stage. One of the functions of this Commission is to register voters. It will be important that even as we encourage them to embrace modern technology, we should also encourage them through a provision in the statute that registration of voters be done electronically. I want to make it clear here. I am not talking about voting electronically. It is registering every other Kenyan electronically. This has been tried in 18 constituencies and I think it is a success story. This will help us to avoid cases where we have a voter turnout of 102 per cent as was the case in 2007 in some places. When we register voters electronically, then we are saying that the ballot paper can only be generated because we used your thumb print; if that is what I have understood it to mean. This means that if you do not show up during the voting day, stuffing of ballot boxes becomes a thing of the past. In so doing, we will have moved the process very far or way ahead to avoid the rigging and even the perceptions. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to agree with Mr. Kajwangâ that the difficulties that we occasioned to ourselves in 2007/2008, had a lot to do with perceptions. It was the thinking of the majority that since we were not involved in this process from the beginning, therefore, we could not agree with the end result. This is where I am concerned that this Bill will not receive contributions from the public. We also needed to hear the public during the Committee Stage. That is why I think the Speaker and the Clerk still have the responsibility to bring that Committee to order as quickly as possible so that every other person has an opportunity to contribute to this process. This will ensure that we deal with this issue of perception that cost us all that we had done before. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we, as leaders, must deal with the issues of perception. Even as we deal with the issues of perception, it is important that when we look at Schedule 5, we may be tempted to think that that process is not giving us adequate opportunity to deal with the boundaries. In passing this Constitution that we now have for this country, I want to submit that there was a lot of selflessness on the part of the Members of Parliament of this Tenth Parliament. I think it is important that we carry on with that spirit. I know that you may want it to the point where you can determine your own boundary, but that may never be the case. It is important that we allow this process to move on. The Commission needs also to be given some room to deal with the media. When the campaigning starts, the media needs to regulate it to the point where parties are allowed to bring out ideologies. What is it that you are offering the country? The media should regulate the amount of time available to a party, but the party would then need to address itself to the content if it needs to remain relevant. As it is today, we are competing for space. We are not competing for any ideologies. We are just competing for rhetoric and how much we can bad mouth the other. That seems to be given credence in our country. If we empower the Commission to ensure that the time that is allocated to parties is for them to espouse on their ideology; on what they wants to do for Kenyans that is different from the others, then we will reduce the number of parties in the country. We cannot have 10 parties talking about 10 different ideologies. It is not possible in an electioneering period. We may have two, three or four competing ideas. By so doing, we will also have raised the level of competition and the kind of politics that we want to do. Personal responsibility has been talked about. It is important that we do not give a blanket cover to staff at the Commission. Where we will not hold them personally responsible for the ills that they occasion to us; most of the petitions that have gone through in court, more often than not, we hear that the persons being blamed and the reasons why we have had many of our colleagues sent back to the electorate, is because the staff and the clerks at the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) messed up the process. They have not suffered at all. The person who has suffered is the Member of Parliament and, perhaps, some fines imposed to the ECK. We need this personal responsibility to the individual who occasioned this misbehavior because, perhaps, at the inducement of somebody, or they do not like your face, they decide to do things in the wrong way. There were instances where they did not even volunteer to show you the areas where you needed to have signed. It was really their responsibility to assist you. It was not the responsibility of the person vying for a position to know each and every form that he must sign. There was a person who was paid to tell you, not until you had signed that form, it was not valid. It is important that personal responsibility is also taken to the people responsible for this. The Bill proposes speedy releasing of results. We saw what they did with the referendum results and the recent by-elections. This should reach a point where even you as a candidate, it really should be of no consequence whether you are at the tallying hall or you are seated in your own sitting room. When we get our process to that level where we do not need to come to another KICC, unless you want to go and console your people there--- We can monitor this process from the comfort of our sitting rooms. This issue of trying to create the perception in the country, we will have dealt with it. So, it is important that we encourage the Commission through legislation that they embrace systems that will allow speedy release of results and also to ensure that the tallying is done at the polling station and relayed properly."
}