HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 762633,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/762633/?format=api",
"text_counter": 1128,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Maore",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13344,
"legal_name": "Richard Maore Maoka",
"slug": "richard-maore-maoka"
},
"content": "Thank you, Hon. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this good piece of law. You remember the issues that we have been grappling with, about the Supreme Court ruling, for nearly two months now. The country has been paralysed. In the process of paralysing the country, we have managed to create a moment of crisis. The element of crisis is not established in law. It is the political temperatures that have been deliberately engineered to cause problems. The same engineering is being called upon to visit this House when it comes to debating this issue. Those who are fighting this Bill have come up with the story of timing. They do not say that there is a problem in any part of this Bill. They insist that the timing is wrong, but they do not tell you that when somebody went to the Supreme Court to seek the nullification of the presidential election results, they did not anticipate that they will create a monumental problem like the one they have created for this country. When the Supreme Court asked the country to prepare for a repeat presidential election to be conducted within 60 days from the day of the judgment, you have seen the mischief played. Instead of preparing for the election, we have had a problem of people who do not want an election. That is what has brought confusion in this country. Kenya should have been the most stable democracy in the world. After the 1st September Supreme Court ruling, everybody expected that there would be chaos, but there was no chaos. I have seen a lot of hypocrisy among donors and civil society organisations, which are not civil these days, who seem to invite a moment of instability that does not exist. If it was any other country in Africa, in particular, there would have been bloodshed in the next 48 hours, which nobody would have come to stop. We thank the institutions of this country, which are intact. A stool has three legs, just like the State – the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. The country can do without a Judiciary for a moment. The country can do without Parliament even for four or five years. However, the country cannot last without a president for one hour. The presidency is a confluence around which all the other institutions revolve. It is for that reason that we should not take it casually when somebody says: “I went to the Supreme Court and I got a ruling, but I may wish to withdraw from the repeat presidential election.” The Constitution and the laws of this land are being addressed very well. When we went to the polling stations and voted, just like the chairman of the ad hoc committee ably described, we had no problems. The problem came in when somebody went to court and complained about the process. The Chief Justice put it very well. He said, “We are not addressing an event. It is a process.” This afternoon, the country is invited to address the anomalies that might have been in that process. As of now, the IEBC cannot receive results manually because the law prohibits us from doing so. When we now say that we need a simultaneous or an alternative method, we should get the support of every Kenyan, including those on the other side of the House. Hon. Speaker, this country is for all of us. On 26th October 2017, we will address the issues that we have been grappling with – the unchartered waters that we have been going through. We do not want a story of a returning officer of the presidential election who is so permanent and individualised that if he had a flu or diarrhoea that morning, we would not have anybody to announce the results of the presidential elections. The powers of the Chairman of the IEBC in the Constitution are clear, but we want to address the issue of a returning officer of the presidential election. There is nothing so judicious about the chairman of the electoral commission that it has to be an individual and it has to be described like this. It can be a member of the IEBC who has been appointed by the others to stand in and, in this case, in our succession tradition in the IEBC, there is the name of a vice-chairperson. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}