Kivuitu team faces axe over poll riots

• Members of the Kriegler commission meet with President Kibaki at his Harambee House Office in Nairobi.
• Commission decided to call on the President to find out whether it would be acting within its mandate to draw up recommendations against ECK.
• Sources say team was prompted to meet President following strong proposals by LSK and IED.

The fate of ECK boss Samuel Kivuitu and the other 21 electoral commissioners appeared to be sealed on Tuesday when it emerged that they could pay the price for last year’s presidential election.

President Kibaki gave the Kriegler Commission the green light to make any recommendations they deemed fit on the Electoral Commission of Kenya and any other aspects of the electoral process.

Sources said the President told members of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into last year’s elections that they would not be overstepping their mandate by making adverse proposals against the ECK.

Disbanding ECK

The sources said that disbanding the ECK was an option given that strong recommendations had been made before the commission.

Members of the Kriegler commission met with President Kibaki at his Harambee House Office in Nairobi.

Violence broke out after the electoral commission announced that President Kibaki had won the election beating his closest rival Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The violence left more than 1,200 people dead and 350,000 displaced.

The commission met Mr Odinga six weeks ago, according to the PM’s spokesman, Mr Salim Lone. A resettlement programme is currently underway and the Government says only 20,000 people were still in camps for uprooted families.

The commission headed by retired judge Johann Kriegler from South Africa decided to call on the President to find out whether it would be acting within its mandate to draw up recommendations against the Kivuitu led team that presided over last year’s elections which plunged the country into two months of bloodshed.

The Kriegler commission, sources said, was concerned that negative sentiments had been building up during the hearings and could not be ignored in their final report.

Sources said the Kriegler team was prompted to make the visit following strong presentations by the Law Society of Kenya and the Institute for Education in Democracy.

Law society chairman Okong’o O’Mogeni had proposed that electoral commission be disbanded on grounds that it had suffered irreparable damage.

Recommendations

That perhaps explains why the Presidential Press Services statement made a pitch for clear recommendations by the Kriegler team in line with its mandate.

“The Head of State said the Commission’s mandate was important in finding a permanent solution to the challenges facing Kenya’s electoral process as experienced in the last General Election and other past elections,” said the statement.