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2017 KENYA ELECTIONS

Murkomen says plot to trim Judiciary powers on

Elgeyo Marakwet Senator said the ruling made by the Supreme Court on September 1 to overturn the presidential outcome of the August 8 election was regretful and vowed to rally support in the enactment of laws that will deny the Supreme Court powers to overturn future presidential election verdicts/COSMUS MWONGELA

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 25 – Senate Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen has maintained that Jubilee legislators’ plan to cut powers of the Judiciary is still on course.

Speaking to Capital FM News on Monday, the Elgeyo Marakwet Senator said the ruling made by the Supreme Court on September 1 to overturn the presidential outcome of the August 8 election was regretful and vowed to rally support in the enactment of laws that will deny the Supreme Court powers to overturn future presidential election verdicts.

“We need to have laws that will guide the Judiciary to ensure that they do their duties with due regard to the constitutional right of voters to vote especially on the argument that this election was nullified on the basis of qualitative analysis of the process and those indicators are not provided for and hence is left to any judge on a subjective interpretation of the law to come up with what he/she thinks is to be qualitative analysis,” he said.

Murkomen who is still agitated following the decision by the Supreme Court who rendered null and void Kenyatta’s victory on August 8 said the laws if adopted by the House will go a long way in protecting future rights of voters where their supreme right of choosing their preferred candidate is deprived through legal procedures.

“If you ask any voter in the country, they are wondering what qualitative analysis is all about and during the Election Day nobody told them that their quality of their votes was lesser if it was going to be affected by the intermediate situations coming between him and the ultimate decision they have made.

“Without proper guidance and without the threshold being set by Parliament that qualitative argument becomes an unruly horse where it is mounted by whatever judge and it takes the direction it wants to take,” said Murkomen.

Murkomen noted as the House commences its sittings Tuesday after the week long induction at Simba Lodge Naivasha, the Jubilee Senators will be strategising on how to ensure that the outcome of the fresh presidential election which is to be held in a month’s time will not again be toppled by a few individuals at the courts.

“The idea that courts can look at just what is qualitative analysis of processes without looking at the numbers of voters and the decision they have made must come to an end and it can only come to end by only amending the law to make it mandatory for every election petition for the judge or petitioner to demonstrate how qualitative processes has affected the most important issue which is the number of votes,” said Murkomen.

The Senator who is now serving his second term said the four judges at the Supreme Court who upheld the National Super Alliance (NASA) petition failed to produce sufficient evidence after ruling that the August 8 presidential election was marred by irregularities and illegalities.

“I really wonder how the Supreme Court nullified the election; Jubilee has a majority of elected leaders in all the various positions and the numbers are there in the ballot boxes,” said Murkomen.

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On the subject of electronic or manual system of results transmission, Murkomen is of the view that the country should revert fully to the manual transmission of results as opposed to the electronic transmission of results which as he stated is yet to be understood by many Kenyans.

“Considering our voting is manual our counting is manual and since many people do not understand electronic systems I think we should go back to also manual transmission of results given that the system is conversant with many Kenyans,” said Murkomen.

To drive his manual adoption system of voting home, Murkomen said it was possible for the country to have a successful election which is backed by the manual transmission of results – with him giving an example of Germany which recently held its elections that was manually conducted from the voting to the counting.

“Unfortunately I think we rushed to talking about electronic transmission. If we were to go the Germany way a serious court of law would not have invalidated the will of the people. We need to make sure that the manual process is clear and understood and is available for everyone to follow the process,” said Murkomen.

The tough-talking Murkomen also took issue with Chief Justice David Maraga who promised to issue a similar ruling if the electoral commission fails to verify the results before declaring the winner of a presidential election.

“If you have already warned the public that you will make the same decision you will only be creating a legitimacy crisis for the Judiciary and that you have a predetermined mind,” warned Murkomen.

With a month to the repeat presidential election, Murkomen affirmed that Jubilee lawmakers in the Senate will stop at nothing in ensuring that voters’ rights and decisions in the future are not reversed.

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