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{
    "id": 731418,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/731418/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 400,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Francis Waititu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1618,
        "legal_name": "Francis Munyua Waititu",
        "slug": "francis-munyua-waititu"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, being in this 11th Parliament which has the best lawyers who have followed the rules of this country and the laws--- We know very well what this country went through in 1997. We now have a new IEBC. Everybody, including the Jubilee Alliance Party and the Opposition were against the former IEBC. We all agreed that we need a change. Now we have change. I remember in 1997 when there was chaos everywhere in this country. Everybody was talking about a parallel IEBC. Recently, we heard some Members of Parliament and some people outside saying that they will have a different tallying centre. We have never heard of such things in the whole country and even in the world. If it happens, this will be the first time that we will have a parallel tallying centre. We have faith in the people that we give jobs to in this country. When people start talking about a new commission that we have just set up out there, people are praying day and night for this country because we do not want to get to where we got then. When I hear the leader of LPK and other party leaders talking about the support they have for the IEBC--- We know that we have definitely returned the nomination papers. What we now need to do as Members of Parliament (MPs) is to support the IEBC and show them that we have faith in them. We always call the IEBC when we have some issues with them. They come before MPs and they are ready to answer any question. I remember one time when we started saying that votes had been stolen. This brought a lot of tension in this country and people died. Are we ready to go that way again? This country has some of the best lawyers in the world. The Senate also has good lawyers. This is the time we should come together. It is a few days to the elections. Our people are always asking whether we will have free and fair elections in this country. The answer is yes. That is because the Chair of the IEBC that we have today was approved by Parliament. We all agreed that, that is the man who should lead IEBC. I ask the former Prime Minister, whom we respect as an elder of this country, to please not utter words that will not help him. People are listening to every word that he says. Remember we had chaos because he and the former President were the people who wanted to be the presidents of this country. People lost property and lives. People will question this House tomorrow. We will say that we did our best to make sure that before we go for the elections, we fought very hard in this House to put in place laws that will ensure that there is no chaos in this country. That is what the 11th Parliament will be remembered for. So, we ask anybody who has a question that needs to be answered to ask the Committee on Delegated Legislation. They are ready to answer any question that is brought to this House. We do not want to hear any chaos in this country. This is a country where we are all praying for peaceful elections. We know people lost property. Today, there is a community in this country which lost its property in Nairobi. Today, there is a community squatting on peoples’ properties but, because of peace, we have been quiet. We do not want to go into that. We are all brothers and sisters. Except for power that we are fighting for in this country, this is a very peaceful country. We ask everybody to support the current Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and avoid talking about a parallel tallying centre because it is not within the law."
}