Bid to change poll date runs into opposition

A section of politicians is opposed to a Bill tabled in the National Assembly seeking to shift the election date from August to December.

The Ugenya MP David Ochieng’s proposed law would affect the current composition of the electoral body and there would not be adequate time to constitute a new one, the opponents said.

The term for the current commissioners and chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) ends in November 2017.

Prof James ole Kiyiapi, a presidential candidate in the March 14, 2013 elections, dismissed the proposed change as unconstitutional.
The Restore and Build Kenya (RBK) party leader rubbished the argument that December was a better date because of the school calendar and termed it a plot by MPs to mutilate the Constitution.

MUTILATE THE CONSTITUTION

“MPs have always found a way to mutilate the Constitution by using lame excuses like school terms. We held elections in March in the middle of the term. Why did they not raise an objection then?” he asked.

County Assemblies Forum secretary general Albert Kochai said that MPs should consider the costs that would be incurred if the date was changed.

“By trying to make sure that the current IEBC leadership does not oversee elections, we are going the expensive route of employing others when we can just hold elections in August,” he said by phone on Monday.

Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen, who sits in the Senate Legal Affairs Committee that will handle the Bill after the National Assembly disposes of it, said they would look at the whole picture and the effects.

The Constitution Implementation Commission chairman, Mr Charles Nyachae, recently observed that since the current IEBC commissioners’ term ends in November 2017, the new poll commissioners would only have been in office for a month.
That time will not be enough to prepare for elections, he said.