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{
    "id": 759995,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/759995/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 86,
    "type": "other",
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    "content": "on a day-to-day basis, because anything can happen to the Chairman of the IEBC; may God forbid. One old lady said that the Chairman can die; so what happens next? Does it mean that one person can hold this country at ransom? We have to provide a mechanism for continuity in the event that the Chair is not there. It is not that we are going to create this or that. Mr. Speaker, Sir, Kenyans need to read this particular Bill and clearly understand it. I am appealing to all those who criticized this Bill that it is going to benefit one particular group or it is not the right time; which is the right time? In the Maina Kiai case, he was allowed only few weeks before elections, so why this particular one? Kenyans need to come to terms with the terms of this particular Bill, understand it properly, accept it the way it is. Our intention as parliamentarians and a party is to make sure that we hold this country together and there is no problem. The other provision I wanted to talk about is Section 5 where we are saying that, that provision is unconstitutional in line with the decision that was made in the court. There is nothing wrong about that because if people are denied an opportunity to elect their leaders---This is in the case of independent candidates who were told to make sure that the people nominating them did not belong to a particular party. That decision has been made. We are just aligning the decision to the ruling of that case. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the other provision is giving the IEBC the mandate to make sure that they have physically and manually delivered the results. There is nothing wrong with that. In the event that there is discrepancy in the results, the most prevailing position is the results that are tallied correctly at the polling station and also at the constituency level. Those results are supposed to be accurate. I believe what we have done is clearly explaining the situation so that everything is done in line with the provisions of the Constitution without any problem. What happens in the current legislation is that, the electronically transmitted results prevail over the manual and that should not be the case. We debated thoroughly as a Committee about this section in the other Bill and it was exactly the same as this particular one. When you have electronically and manually transmitted results, you will find that the electronic version has a problem. At the same time, sometimes you will find the manually transmitted results have a problem and for us to get out of this, it is important to go back to the root or the source in order to be sure which result is correct. That is the situation we are trying to cure. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the other provision in this amendment is the live streaming of the results. For the benefit of Kenyans, there is nothing wrong with that because IEBC is mandated to ensure that Kenyans see on the screen of the television what is happening and how the results are streaming in. These are the issues that are beneficial to the public and not Jubilee as some people are alluding to. On the issue of the quorum; the current Commission is constituted of seven Commissioners. Initially, they were nine. This was reduced by the Kiraitu Murungi and Sen. Orengo Committee and this is in the public domain. They used to be nine and now they have been reduced to seven and that has not been aligned to the legislation that is in place. Mr. Speaker, Sir the constitutional provision is that the quorum of a particular commission should be three and this is what we are aligning to the current amendment"
}