NAIROBI, Kenya, May 26 – Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairperson Wafula Chebukati Tuesday said scheduled boundaries delimitation will begin in September.
Speaking during an interview on Citizen Television, he however voiced concerns that the exercise may not be the concluded before 2022 polls given the legal requirement that the delimitation exercise is concluded twelve months before a General Election.
“We have barely a year to ensure everything is done before July 2021. This includes a dispute resolution period of the about 4 months. So what the Commission will do is once the situation calms down as far as the pandemic is concerned,” Chebukati indicated.
“We shall start the exercise and if we are not done with it, we will stop and focus on the General Election and then we can finish the remaining part thereafter,” he added.
Early this year, Chebukati announced that the Commission had developed the Boundaries Review Operations Plan and that it would begin to implementing it once the National Treasury releases funds when the new financial begins.
The IEBC said it will use the official census data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), and the 2019 population and housing census results, to guide the review of electoral boundaries.
While reviewing the boundaries, IEBC is required to take into account the geographical features and urban centres, community of interest, historical, economic, and cultural ties and means of communication.
The 2019 Population and Housing Census results showed that there are 47.6 million Kenyans and the population quota per constituency is likely to rise to approximately 164,000 with exceptions for cities and sparsely populated areas.
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