Governors, media owners differ with AG on poll laws
Attorney-General Githu Muigai (right) with Royal Media Services chairman S.K Macharia when they appeared before the Senate Legal Affairs Committee Tuesday to give their views on the contentious amendments to the electoral laws. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO
Governors, media owners and business leaders have differed with the Attorney-General on the form of back-up for voters register best suited to the August 8 General Election.
While Attorney-General Githu Muigai called for a manual back-up system, the Council of Governors, the Media Owners Association, the Law Society of Kenya, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry said Kenya has what it takes to put in place an electronic back-up system for the identification of voters and transmission of election results where technology fails.
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, the lobbies and professional bodies said the country can afford foolproof electronic systems that will guarantee free, fair, transparent and verifiable elections.
The committee is hearing views on the now controversial Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2015.
The professional associations said the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission can deploy the use of satellite technology in areas where telecoms systems are unavailable.
Media owners, through Royal Media Services chairman Samuel Macharia, said the 2002 General Election were conducted through the use of satellite technology that was deployed in all polling stations and which is cheaper than mobile telephones.
Mr Macharia went ahead to claim that the use of manual system in the 2007 General Election led to the declaration of a person (Mwai Kibaki) who did not win the poll as President.
The comments were quickly denounced by Mr Kibaki’s aides.
Through governors John Mruttu (Taita Taveta), Kivutha Kibwana (Makueni) and Isaac Ruto (Bomet), the CoG called on the Senate to reject amendments to the Elections Laws Act 2016 as passed by the National Assembly terming them “mischievous”.
“Our plea is that this 44 A be dropped and as you negotiate through the mediation, ensure any complimentary mechanism is technology-based except special circumstances of disability and people who can’t be subjected to Biometric Voter Registration,” said Prof Kibwana.
Prof Muigai, however, said Kenya cannot afford to fail to put in place a manual system of identification of voters because the failure of election system is almost guaranteed because that is nature of electronics.
“In my own judgment and going by the Supreme Court of Kenya finding in the case of Honourable Raila Odinga and others in the presidential election petition number 5 of 2013, we in Kenya have a manual voting system from the time of registration to the time of transmission of vote.
“There are a few electronic interventions but voting system remains largely manual,” he said.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
