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{
    "id": 688264,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/688264/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 417,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "On Thematic Area No.3, we needed to deal with the question of the panel. I have seen some people complain out there that there is a choice for the President to appoint six out of nine people as commissioners and one out of two people as chairman. It must be understood very clearly that the selection panel we have put in place is so independent that the President has no say when it comes to the selection panel. Once we have achieved that independence, in terms of the selection panel, we should not be worried about the nine or eleven people they will select because we have cured the possibility of interference within the selection panel, in such a way that in future we do not have to worry whether the president was given nine or six names to choose from. I heard some Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) legislators saying that the negotiators on their side acceded to a process that gives the President powers. There is absolutely no process here giving the President powers because the selection panel is independent. It is composed of five leaders from the religious sector, four to be appointed by the Parliamentary Service Commission and the secretariat will be the Parliamentary Service Commission. Many people thought that for the Church to be involved too much in the political process, elections process and selection process it may not be good for the country in the long run. That is why there is a caveat in that proposal that it is only going to apply to the next commissioners we will deal with. Thereafter, Parliament has to sit down and work on a fairer panel, which can accommodate the various interests, without dragging our religious leaders through a process of picking commissioners. In future, if we disagree again on the commissioners, many people will say that those were the commissioners of religious organizations. Therefore, their position as umpires or voices of reason might be compromised when they are part and parcel of dealing with the selection panel. Therefore, we have put a caution there that this is just in regard to the first nomination of the commission when it comes to the next elections. The last part, which is Thematic Area No.4., is the one that has far-reaching reforms on questions of voter registration. We agreed that we must move the voter registration process, verification process and transmission of results to modern ways of dealing with technology. We emphasized the need to use technology to transmit presidential results from polling stations directly to the national tallying centre, constituency tallying centres for the position of Members of Parliament and county tallying centres for the leaders who are running for office in the counties. We also emphasized the need to verify the register. Again, this is an area that had contention because a section of the political divide said that the register is not credible. We thought that it is good to get a competent and reputable firm to do a one-off kind of verification, but also provide in law that in future, the commission should be free to continue doing the verification. It is important to remind Kenyans that verification of voters and clearing of the register is a continuous process. It requires that when someone passes away, they should no longer continue being in the register. That is why we made the provision that the commission should continue having the powers to continuously clear the register. 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."
}