The Ethnic Rag Rejects Uhuru Kenyatta Rigging Amendments

[Omollo]

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I can imagine the amount of soul searching The Ethnic Rag went through to write this. I am however aware that the same rag fired a journalist who dared write a sensible editorial on another issue The Tribe had hallowed.

By EDITORIAL
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The fate of the amended electoral laws now lies with President Uhuru Kenyatta after Senate voted to uphold them.

After the National Assembly voted for the Elections Act amendment Bill 2016 in December, it was expected that the Senate, which had indicated it would deliberate on the issues soberly, would act differently.

However, that did not happen. Instead, party politics played out and Senators voted based on partisan interests just like their compatriots at the National Assembly.

Jubilee Coalition carried the day by dint of numerical strength. It means the amendments, among them, a proposal that allows the use of a manual system in managing elections in the event that the electronic method fails will become law if passed by the President.

The government and the Opposition took very hardline positions and generated much heat without a dispassionate and objective interrogation of the issues.

Before the amendments, the Elections Act stipulated that polls will be conducted through an electronic system, including tallying and transmission of results.

Underpinning this argument was that the manual process was vulnerable to manipulation.

However, the counter argument was that it was unwise to tie the hands of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to a system that may not be fail-safe.

It was argued that large swathes of the country were not covered digitally and therefore it was irrational to preclude manual systems.

But the debate turned into a power contest with the various political formations hijacking it to show might.

The challenge is that if assented, then the country will go to polls divided over the process and that provides a basis for contestation of results and possibility of violence. Already, the Cord Coalition had called for mass action over the laws and only suspended it to await the outcome of the Senate debate.

Since the previous law had been crafted through consensus, similarly, the amendments should have been done through negotiation. President Kenyatta should not assent to the Bill, but return it to Parliament and ask for review through consensus to avert crisis.

http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Editorial/Why-Uhuru-should-not-sign-election-law/440804-3508794-ayw7k8z/index.html

[Kichwa]

The game is up with this kind of rigging.  There is no need for CORD to go to the polls when Jubilee already has "2 Million jubilee ghost voters"  ready to be introduced into the ballot boxes at their earliest convenience. Let jubilee participate in the elections by themselves and "rule" until we can fix this problem as a country.