200 000 JOBS

Nearly 200,000 people will be hired for the referendum in August.

The Interim Independent Electoral Commission on Thursday advertised 190,210 jobs.

Applications should be in by Wednesday next week and are to be sent to the 17 Regional Elections Coordinators in the country.

There are openings for 20,660 presiding officers, 33,910 deputy presiding officers and 135,640 polling clerks.

There will be four polling clerks in each of the 33,910 polling centres. The Regional Election Coordinators and the Constituency Election Coordinators (Returning Officers) will be permanent employees. The other officials will be on contract for three months.

Previously, all election officials other than those under the secretariat were hired on a temporary basis ahead of elections.

Kenya expects to go to the referendum by August 6.

The conduct of the referendum is stipulated in the Review Act and Section 47(A) of the current constitution.

The IIEC is required, within seven days of the publication of the proposed constitution, to frame and publish the referendum question in consultation with the PSC.

The Act in section 37(3) reads: “The question to be submitted to the referendum shall require the voter to indicate whether the voter approves or does not approve the Proposed New Constitution and shall be so framed as to require the answer ‘Yes’ or the answer ‘No’.”

Fourteen days after the question is published, the IIEC will announce the day of the referendum, the polling time and the campaign period. On the same day, the IIEC will suspend any registration of voters though the current one is expected to end on May 5.

Civic education

The Committee of Experts will, after the publication of the draft, start 30 days of public civic education on the draft.

The Review Act suggests that the government should not be involved in the civic education.

The law also says that the provincial administration should “co-operate with and provide support to the Committee of Experts”.

The IIEC is required by the Review Act to announce the results within two days, which will be latest on August 8.

If the new constitution passes the referendum test, President Kibaki has a two-week window to promulgate it and set the ball rolling for its implementation.

Not all the provisions of the new constitution will come into effect immediately.