Electoral board rejects plea to quit as talks gear up

Church leaders on Friday said that all indications are that the electoral commissioners may be replaced and that talks were in top gear on the issue.

The chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Anyolo, and the National Council of Churches of Kenya secretary-general, Rev Canon Peter Karanja, separately said that was the case.

The two have led their groups in the past one month saying the commission had lost the confidence of Kenyans.

Away from public pronouncements, religious leaders have been trying to break the stalemate.

The leaders this week met the commissioners in Mombasa to persuade them to retire. The commissioners rejected this.

The same week Cord leader Raila Odinga wrote to President Uhuru Kenyatta asking for dialogue on electoral reforms.

Deputy President William Ruto said on Wednesday the government was ready for talks as long as they are structured in line with the Constitution.

He said the talks should involve Parliament but that clergy can be enjoined.

The Rev Canon Karanja said: “The talks are on but we do not want to be speculative. I do not want to say if it will end in the commissioners going or staying, but it will resolve the issues.”

It is also understood that a Public Accounts Committee report on the conduct of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission in the last elections was tabled in March before the House, but which has never been debated, could be used to send the commissioners home.

On Thursday, the National Assembly’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee said it would not approve the commission’s Sh45 billion budget before it resolved the integrity questions stalking it.

CORD BACKERS
The report by the accounts committee links Mr Hassan and Commissioners Thomas Letangule and Mohamed Alawi to claims of influencing the tender for the Biometric Voter Registration kits in 2013, which led to the loss of Sh4 billion, and an irregular payment of Sh258 million to an Indian supplier.

The committee recommended that Mr Hassan, Mr Alawi and Mr Letangule be investigated and prosecuted for orchestrating the scandal.

The commissioners are expected before the committee on Tuesday.

Insiders say that a win for Jubilee in 2017 under a cloudy electoral commission will taint their victory.

“We want to go to the polls with a referee who is acceptable to the Opposition to forestall questions on the integrity of our win,” Igembe North MP Joseph M’Eruaki told Saturday Nation on Friday.

Presidential candidates in the 2013 elections, Musalia Mudavadi, Prof James ole Kiyiapi and Ms Martha Karua have supported calls for change in the commissioners with Kanu saying it will join Cord in its Monday protests.

The Law Society of Kenya and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights as well as some members of the ruling coalition have supported calls to disband the electoral commission.

Senior Counsel Paul Muite argued that commission could be removed on the grounds of how they managed the 2013 polls and the failure of its electronic system and corruption.

The commission has hit back and warned of Cord’s “systematic, but unfounded misinformation and propaganda to discredit them”.

THE ALTERNATIVE
Mr Letangule, who chairs the electoral commission’s dispute resolution tribunal, has said it is too late to bring in a new commission.

“No commission is more prepared to run the next election like this one. If you try to bring in new people one year to the next election, you are courting disaster.”

Mr Muite proposes a new team of three to a maximum of five commissioners be selected, with a competent secretariat that is empowered to run the polls.

Central Kenya Parliamentary Group chairman Dennis Waweru confirmed Jubilee MPs are considering a joint legal affairs committee of the Senate and the National Assembly to handle the IEBC negotiations.

“This committee will receive views and scrutinise all allegations and do a report which can form the basis on the fate of the IEBC,” said Mr Waweru.

Additional reporting by Billy Muiruri and Leopold Obi