New bid for consensus on Kenya polls body

Chairman of the Parliamentary Justice and Legal Affairs committee Mr Ababu Namwamba said the conference would give new meaning to management of elections in this country. Photo/FILE 

By NATION CORRESPONDENTPosted Sunday, February 27 2011 at 22:28

The country’s efforts to modernise its electoral system will pass an important milestone if a multi-sectoral conference agrees on a draft Bill to be presented to Parliament.

The three-day conference kicked off on Sunday at Naivasha’s Simba Lodge.

The conference has been convened by the Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa to generate common ground and consensus on the IEBC Bill for onward transmission to the Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) and the Kenya Law Reform Commission (KLRC).

CIC and KLRC would then submit the Bill to the Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs for its own consideration.

Attendance to the conference has been drawn from the CIC, the Ministry of Justice, International Commission of Jurists, IIEC, Institute for Education in Democracy and the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee.

Speaking to the Nation on Sunday, Mr Ababu Namwamba, the chairman of Parliament’s Justice and Legal affairs committee, said the conference would give new meaning to management of elections in this country.

Ahead of the conference, though, there have been conflicting views between Mr Namwamba’s committee and the IIEC/KLRC mainly in regard to recruitment of members of the initial commission, the body that will carry out the recruitment, terms of the commissioners and the appointment of the secretary to the commission.

But Mr Namwamba downplayed the differences. “Really there is no disharmony. There is only one Bill which has formed the template for discussion,” he said.

Divergent views

While acknowledging the differing views, Mr Namwamba and another member of the committee, Mr Olago Aluoch (Kisumu Town West), said the purpose of the meeting was to harmonise these divergent views.

He appealed to the coalition principals to seize the opportunity to hand the country a credible institution.

“More than anyone else, they (the principals) have been victims of indeterminate and bungled elections,” he said.

The draft by the parliamentary team had proposed that in creating the initial commission, the current IIEC and the defunct Interim Independent Boundaries Review Commission (IIBRC) would each provide two of the eight commissioners.

The remaining four commissioners, in the committee’s wisdom, would then be advertised for competitive recruitment.

But in the draft produced by the IIEC in conjunction with KLRC, all the eight positions for commissioners as well as the chairperson’s must be done competitively and transparently.