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{
    "id": 762641,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/762641/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1136,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Katoo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 199,
        "legal_name": "Judah Katoo Ole-Metito",
        "slug": "judah-ole-metito"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I rise to support this Bill. A lot has been said about the specific clauses of the Bill. Let me just generalise and say that having read this Bill, I was able to conclude the three objectives that this Bill is trying to achieve. One is that we have had elections always being mishandled by the election officials such as the presiding and returning officers, mostly at the grassroots level. Therefore, one of the loopholes that this Bill seeks to close is to insulate the election from the mischief of the election officials. That has been elaborated when we read about the offences of those who mishandle the election. It is a good objective. Again, the court pronounced itself and talked about many ambiguities in the laws relating to elections. It is good that we support these proposed amendments as another objective to remove the ambiguities in the law relating to the conduct and transmission of the results. When we talk of manual and electronic transmission of results, there is need to remove those ambiguities on how to transmit those results. My final objective as it has been said is that there is need to avert the risk of the IEBC chairperson being unable or unwilling to declare the winner of the presidential election. Therefore, those three key items will make me support this Bill. Out there, there has been the notion that it is not the right time to amend the election laws. We are about three weeks away from the October 26th Presidential Election. I remember the ruling of the famous Maina Kiai Case, that made a lot of fundamental changes to election laws, was done exactly three weeks to the elections. No one at that time talked of the timing not being right. Why is the timing not right for these amendments and yet the timing is the same? It was three weeks to the elections then; it is now three weeks to the elections. Those people out there talking about international best practice should know that international best practice is only there in accounting procedures and practices. In law, and especially in the situation we are in as a country, it is politically self-serving to talk of a best practice scenario. Kenya is confronting a new challenge that has never been witnessed before in Africa and has only been witnessed in a handful of other countries. Even in the so-called old democracies such as the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK) and France, for over 250 years, they have not had a single presidential election nullified by a supreme court in those democracies. Therefore, there is neither a precedent on what we are experiencing as a country nor best practices anywhere in the world. Therefore, the current situation in Kenya will be a learning or reference point in future for other countries. The Supreme Court of Kenya said that elections are a process. I fully agree with that. It is good that as Parliament, we amend these laws and re-orient the election laws to the processes that the Supreme Court talked about. The processes the Supreme Court talked about were issues of technicalities, administrative errors, irregularities and illegalities, rather than the results. They based the ruling mostly on the processes rather than the results. The results are the ones that signify the will of the people. 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."
}