Entry Instance

HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept

{
    "id": 669979,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/669979/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 163,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Kaluma",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1565,
        "legal_name": "George Peter Opondo Kaluma",
        "slug": "george-peter-opondo-kaluma"
    },
    "content": "vote. According to the Constitution, every adult citizen of the country has the right to vote. We have a situation where 8 million Kenyans with IDs are not registered to vote. As we look at the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, we need to see how we can bridge this gap so that those 8 million people can participate in the choice of leadership in this country. There is something else that is even more worrying. When you register to vote, all your biodata is captured. I am happy that the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, from which I stand de-whipped, is in the House. I hope I will come back to the Committee soon. When you register to vote, all your biodata is captured. Why do we have a provision in our laws that states that without a national ID, you cannot vote? All your biodata is available but, without an ID, you cannot vote. When you go to register as a voter, they require an ID or a passport and yet, the only thing you need to confirm is that you are an adult citizen of the country. Through this law - and I will be proposing some amendments - we need to expand the array of documentation required to register as a voter, provided that they originate from Government agencies. There are two observations that I would like to make. As a Member of the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs then, we observed the last elections in South Africa. There is something we observed which I need to share with my colleagues in Parliament. When we went to the national tallying centre for the elections in Pretoria, South Africa, it was not the situation you see at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) or Bomas of Kenya when we do the national tallying. It is a very open place with no police officers. There are only lawyers building up cases to take to court. There are also people seeking documentation on the electoral process. When there was a dispute concerning the number of votes cast in one province, the matter was not left to the commissioners like in our case. The provincial returning officer of Western Cape Province was called to clarify. Commissioners only deal with policy matters and strategic directions. In Kenya, your results are announced after the results of the presidential race. For a whole week, you wait for Commissioners who are seated at Bomas recounting the votes cast, something which has already been done at the polling centres. I was in Turkey, in the same year, on behalf of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) for the campaigns that led to the election of President Erdogan who was here recently. The polling closes at 5.30 p.m. By 6.30 p.m., the president is declared and known. The system of voting is electronic and tamper-proof. In Kenya, as late as the time the Malindi by-elections were held, the Electronic Voter Identification Devices (EVIDs) were still failing at the polling stations. When you ask the IEBC people what is happening, they tell you that there is a problem of humidity. I request that we use this law, having come before the agitations for electoral reforms, not only to deal with the matters it was limited to, but we see how to expand it even as we deal with those other issues. How do we deal with the matter of registration for IDs? How do we deal with the matter of registration of persons? How do we deal with the matter of registration of voters? How do we deal with the issue of polling? That is the reason I support the idea to reduce the number of registered voters at a polling station to 700 and below. If Members look at that provision, there is a proviso at the end which we will need to delete. I thank the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs for recommending so. The The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}