By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, February 11 2012 at 22:30
Posted Saturday, February 11 2012 at 22:30
A fresh battle over electoral zones is imminent in Parliament as MPs begin their sittings to analyse, debate, amend and finally approve the revised report of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
This follows the minimal changes that the IEBC did to its initial report.
It acquiesced to requests to change the names of constituencies and wards; shifting some wards and sub-locations to take into account historical, cultural and community interests.
However, the commission rejected the push to split constituencies and has largely stuck to its original recommendations released on January 9 as far as new constituencies go. (READ: Poll body launches report on new boundaries)
The report has the proposed 290 constituencies and 1,450 wards from the 47 counties in the country.
The criteria
The debate in Parliament will be shrouded by the hackneyed but important debate about the constitutional principles used to delimit the constituencies, and whether it should be the one-man-one-vote principle or one-kilometre-one-vote.
The names of wards for the counties and the constituencies were also a thorny issue at the public hearings.
The people wanted names that reflected the community or ancestry, according to a matrix of the summaries of the hearings seen by theSunday Nation.
The public told the commissioners to change the boundaries or move sub-locations from one area to another to preserve tribal or clan interests.
There were also proposals to buttress the desire to have equal access by each community to resources such as water, tourist attractions, good roads, towns, factories and market places.
Bearing in mind that the planning and execution of grassroots development projects will be at the ward level, these resources were seen as giving an electoral zone a head-start in the devolved governments.
Also, farmers did not want to be mixed with pastoralists just as those living in highlands did not want to be placed in the same county assembly wards with those living in the lowlands.
The ethnic undertones that clouded the IEBC 21-day public hearings will return to haunt the process, and so will the demands for more constituencies.
When he presented the revised report to Parliament’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, IEBC chairman Issack Hassan hinted at the ethnic undertones when he said that most of those who presented their grievances were out to create “pure breed zones” or “political enclaves”.
A close look at the IEBC revised report shows that the commission may have inadvertently or deliberately tinkered with some constituencies like Kuresoi and Nakuru Town to create ethnic majorities or to carve out a cosmopolitan electoral zone.
Others, for example in Nairobi’s Lang’ata may have been split to separate the rich from the poor. (DOWNLOAD: Preliminary Report of The Proposed Boundaries of Constituencies)
Residents of President Kibaki’s Othaya constituency will lead the retinue of those whose input was ignored.
They wanted Othaya split into two and the five wards split to make 10. But the IEBC did not touch the constituency, and hived off one ward.
Mathira, Kieni, Nyeri Town, Tetu are also those in Nyeri County that had asked for a split but this did not materialise. Mukurwe-ini is the only constituency that did not have issues with the delimitation.
In Marsabit County, Mr Chachu Ganya, whose North Horr constituency is the largest in the country, has already vowed to fight the revised IEBC report when it is tabled in the House.
Speaking to the Sunday Nation on phone, Mr Ganya said the views given to the IEBC team had all been ignored and it will now be upon Parliament to consider his predicament.
North Horr has an estimated area of 38,953 square kilometres and about 75,196 people, meaning that for every square kilometre in the vast constituency, there are two people.
The residents had asked the commission to split North Horr constituency into either three or two.North Horr, in terms of area, is a combination of Central, Nyanza and Nairobi provinces put together.
They had proposed Chalbi East, Chalbi North and Chalbi West for the double split, and North Horr and Chalbi East for the single split.
Other areas with issues are Wajir South where MPs Mahmoud Sirat and Mohammed Affey (nominated) have been calling for the formation of Habaswein constituency out of Wajir South. This was not granted.
The change in names as a result of the public hearings saw Eldoret South constituency change its name from the initial proposal of Tarakwa to Kesses.
Baringo East has been renamed Tiaty; Muchongoi has been renamed Baringo South.
In Nyanza, there was a renaming exercise and a shift of sub-locations, with Migori East and Migori West in Migori County renamed Suna East and West respectively.
Mbita of Mr Otieno Kajwang’, the Immigration Minister, changed its name to Suba North, while Gwasi, still in Homa Bay, was renamed Suba South.
Nairobi County, too, did not miss out on the renaming exercise, with the proposal to have Kawangware constituency renamed Kilimani; while the four split from the original Embakasi have had their names changed from Kariobangi, Kayole, Mihango and Umoja, to Embakasi North, Embakasi Central, Embakasi East, and Embakasi South constituencies respectively.
The public has until February 17 to lobby MPs, one last time to alter the IEBC report.
As soon as the report is tabled, Parliament will propose amendments to the committee report, or simply debate and approve it and send it back to the commission. The House will have a maximum of seven days to do this.
The IEBC will then have the liberty to go through the changes proposed from Parliament and decide whether to accept or reject them.
After that, the final report will be published in the Kenya Gazette or in two newspapers of national circulation.
Under the law, it is only then, that anyone with unaddressed grievances will be free to go to court to object to the rejection of the report.
All grievances have to be filed in the court within a month of publication of the official report. If the matter ends up in court, the court will have to hear and determine it within a month.
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