{"id":716433,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/716433/?format=json","text_counter":265,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Sen. Wetangula","speaker_title":"January 5, 2017 SENATE DEBATES 35 The Senate Minority Leader","speaker":{"id":210,"legal_name":"Moses Masika Wetangula","slug":"moses-wetangula"},"content":" Mr. Speaker, Sir, I will continue from where I was interrupted. However, I will be brief because I want to give room to others to contribute. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I heard very extravagant political romanticism reaching the House. There were statements like the minority will have their say and the majority will have their way. It may be so. You may win today, but tomorrow is waiting. You may win the battle, but you will not win the war. You may vote today under the guise of numbers, but I want to tell you the numbers are not in this House. The numbers are out there. The numbers are waiting for you. When the history of this House is written and when your children and grandchildren read the history of this country, they will ask where you were when this happened. They will want to know what you said when this happened. They will ask why you did what you did, knowing that you are taking this country to the wrong direction. It is not those who fight that carry the greatest responsibility. It is those who cause others to fight that carry the greatest responsibility. With a vote in this House this afternoon, this Senate is either going to set tranquil in the electoral process in the country or set the country on the cascade towards unpalatable consequences. I say this without any fear of contradiction. You can cheat some people sometimes but you cannot cheat all the people all the time. I know the flurry of phone calls that have been going on around, I know that people have been told to vote this way, but I salute you, who will be guided by your conscience. I salute you who will come here knowing that your county did not send you here to vote in unconstitutional, unpopular, unworkable, dangerous, divisive Bills that can bring doom to this country. You were brought here to moderate the excesses of the “Lower” House. You were brought here to make this country good. That is why we cannot tire in saluting you for asking the police not to cordon off this House because this is a House of debate and a House of reason. We want to salute you for bending backwards to give us an opportunity to debate this Bill; for Kenyans to know that what is happening is not the talk of failure of technology. I was totally embarrassed when I watched a man I respect so much because of his knowledge of legal matters, Prof. Githu Muigai, saying that technology by its very nature is bound to fail and it will fail. How do we go out there to spend billions of Kenyan tax payers’ money to buy technology that will fail? India has 700 million voters, they use technology and it works. On electronic voting, somebody stands here and gives us a lecture that when you go and you are given a ballot paper, it is manual. When you mark, it is manual. When you put it in the box, it is manual. Why are you underrating our intelligence? That is common sense. This law is not talking about receiving a ballot, marking it and putting it into the box. It is talking about registration, identification and transmission of vote results. Having in mind the history that we have come from and the history that we are facing, anybody who will perpetuate themselves in whatever form by undermining the process of elections, anybody who will convolute the electoral process by using numbers in a conclave like this and forgetting that there are more numbers out there, are courting disaster. I am happy to see my brother, Sen. Murungi come in. I was waiting to see Sen. Murungi who is a man whom I have tremendous respect for. He is a man who has 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"}