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    "id": 687597,
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    "content": "another two years, the commission must engage in the process of delimiting constituency boundaries as required under the Constitution and that requires a hearing. Those who can remember what the Hon. Ligale Commission did, they had to go all over the country to undertake their work. In the spirit of give and take, we agreed on seven permanent members of the commission. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, concerning the selection panel, if you look at the current legislation, which is the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Act, the template which is there, is executive driven and was brought into place at the time of the Grand Coalition Government which made it the responsibility of the President to appoint the selection panel. We have agreed on a format in which the religious leaders are going to play an important role. We are going to have five of them from various sectors within the religious community, and four, who are going to be nominated by the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) with the understanding that the participation of the coalitions would be necessary as is the case with some of the commissions such as PSC and the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) where the coalitions have played a significant role. Although we were given examples of countries where commissioners are nominated and appointed directly by the political parties, we had again in the process of give and take find out something that can work not only for 2017, but for Kenya. I am trying to demonstrate that the Committee in its deliberations, there was very candid engagement that took place. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I thank the religious community since, prior to the establishment of the Committee they played a big role in bringing the two sides of the coalitions together. I also thank the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) which was very much involved in the diplomacy that went on. The diplomatic community particularly the United States of America (US) ambassador and the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom(UK) who were able to intervene at instances when we were not probably talking to each other, and managed to narrow the differences, to the extent that we now have this Report. I also thank the leadership of both coalitions as I did in the beginning. You saw on Monday, his Excellency the President and the Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga saying that we shall never have violence again, that Kenya deserves better and elections should never be a source of the kind of conflict that we saw in 2007-2008. In other countries such as Ivory Coast, they have brought complete dismemberment if not for all time, but temporary dislocation of activities of Government. Generally, the third world is replete with instances where elections have caused a lot of problems. It is time that we in the political class must be prepared to ensure that those who participate in elections are able to do so on a level playing ground. An outcome of an election may be a disappointment but essentially you would find the various rivals in elections accepting the results because they are sure, like in a game of football or even the athletics we have had in Rio that there was nobody taking an The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
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