NAIROBI, Kenya Mar 23-Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has threatened to move to court over the passage of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Act of 2023 saying it was invalidly passed by the Senate.
Omtatah wants the ongoing reconstitution of the poll body halted saying the amendments of the repealed IEBC Act 2012 should be conducted afresh with the input of all political stakeholders.
The lawmaker stated that once the report on the bill was formulated by the Senate Justice and Legal Affairs Committee it was never debated saying it was approved without the concurrence of the House.
“I will be heading to court next week to challenge the amendments to the IEBC act which have brought a lot of noise in the country. After the bill was tabled in the Senate it became the property of the house and it ought to have been debated and either defeated or approved,” he said.
The activist expressed that the ongoing recruitment to fill the vacant slots within IEBC is not hinged on the law terming it an exercise in futility.
“No standing orders allows that and therefore that bill was passed without debate hence invalid. Even the appointment President Ruto is about to make have no basis in the law,” Omtatah said.
The Senator also poked holes on the legality of the selection panel as envisaged in the IEBC Act 2023 saying only the Parliamentary Service Commission followed the law in recruiting representatives to sit in the panel.
He mentioned that only PSC shortlisted and interviewed candidates to sit in the selection panel while the rest embarked on a boardroom process to choose the candidates for the panel.
The other representatives are from the Public Service Commission, the Parliamentary Service Commission, the Political Parties Liaison Committee, the Law Society of Kenya, and the Inter-Religious Council of Kenya.
“All these other bodies went into boardroom decisions, they handpicked people to the panel. To make it worse the Chair of the Political Parties Liason Committee nominated himself to earn those sitting allowances. We can’t run the country like a kiosk,” Omtatah insisted.
“I will move to court to invalidate whatever happened.So that we go back to the drawing board and make a new law that will carry on board the wishes of all Kenyans,”he added.
The Political Parties Liaison Committee will be represented by its chairman Evans Misati James.
Benson Ngugi Njeri (LSK), Kisotu (Public Service Commission), Makanda and Fatuma Saman both of NAMLEF.
Bethuel Sugut and Novince Euralia Atieno are representing the Parliamentary Service Commission.
Ruto vs Raila
This coming weeks after Azimio Leader Raila Odinga demanded that President William Ruto should halt the recruitment of IEBC commissioner.
On March 12th during the Azimio Rallies in Likoni, Mombasa County, he said that the process should be revoked and the selection panel reconstituted with representatives drawn from political parties.
“We want the poll body IEBC not to be controlled by President William Ruto alone. Kenya Kwanza to sit together with Azimio to select the IEBC commissioners,” said Odinga.
Part of the reasons why Odinga is staging demonstrations across the country every Monday and Thursday is to halt the ongoing recruitment of the IEBC commissioners.
The Azimio Coalition has distanced itself from the process of recruitment of the IEBC commissioners saying it is an attempt by President Ruto to constitute an electoral commission that will favor his re-election bid in 2027.
The opposition leader seemingly pushing a bipartisan effort similar to what we saw in 1997 with the Inter-Party Parliamentary Group (IPPG).
President Ruto however rubbished the demands by the Opposition Coalition to halt the ongoing recruitment of Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioners.
President Ruto advised his archrival Raila Odinga to push for amendments in the IEBC Act if he wants to stop the reconstitution of the poll body saying he won’t allow impunity in the country.
“Those who are telling me to stop following the law and the Constitution and follow their personal requests that are not in the law. I want to tell them that I won’t do it, I am sorry,” Ruto said.
President Ruto affirmed that he will promote the law in his administration urging those who are irked by the recruitment of the IEBC commissioners to seek recourse in the law through amendments.
The President reiterated that no one is above the law and therefore Odinga cannot issue demands through word of mouth and expect the same to be headed yet the nation is guided by the principles of the law.
“Those who have an issue with any part of the law, amend that part. Once it is amended we will all follow but as it is we will follow the Constitution as it is,” he said.
Selection Panel
Nelson Makanda the Chairperson of the IEBC select panel said Wednesday that they will observe the law and follow the constitution in the recruitment exercise.
“We will discharge our mandate in a manner that every Kenyan will be confident for the members that we will present to the president for the appointment,” he said during the briefing on the progress the panel has made since taking the oath of office.
Makanda said that they have made positive progress since they took office noting that in a week’s time a total of 169 candidates had applied for the available positions even as he expressed optimism that at the lapse of three weeks time, more Kenyans would have applied.
The Selection Panel placed an advertisement for vacancies for the position IEBC Chairperson and six Members of the Commission in the local dailies last Saturday, March 10 as an addendum to the advertisement published on March 7, 2023, as required by the law.
“Since then the Selection Panel has been receiving applications both online and hard copies from eligible persons,” he said.
Upon receiving the applications, Makanda said the Selection Panel will embark on preparing the long list of the applications followed by shortlisting.
Thereafter the longlist and shortlist of applicants will be published in the local dailies to allow members of the public an opportunity to submit memoranda to the Panel containing any information of interest concerning the suitability of the shortlisted nominees.
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