Jubilee Party to amend poll laws ahead of election

Jubilee Party has said it will from this week initiate amendments to sections of the electoral laws so that 'technical matters' do not form a basis for annulment of presidential elections.

Senate Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen said elections should be about the number of votes that one garners and not how the results are transmitted.

Mr Murkomen said the changes would be made before the October 26 repeat presidential election so that Kenyans are not denied their sovereign power to elect their leaders over issues they have little control over.

“We are ready to amend any sections of the law that are a stumbling block to Kenyans in electing their leaders,” said Murkomen.

The sentiments were echoed by Kericho Senator Aaron Cheruyiot, who said: “On Tuesday we will start the process of amending sections of our laws to give IEBC a clear path so that they can conduct the presidential elections once without any issues.”

Speaking separately, Majority Leader in the National Assembly Aden Duale said they were studying the detailed judgement with a view to coming with up legislation that will assist the electoral body to carry out the repeat process.

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Mr Duale said their focus will be on why the complimentary mechanism put in place by the joint parliamentary select committee was not implemented.

The electoral laws gave leeway to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to use manual backup in the event the electronic system fails.

"The Orengo-Kiraitu team made laws that required the commission to resort to a complimentary mechanism in the event the electronic system failed. Why was that section not operationalised?

"Those are some of the things we want addressed before the commission conducts the repeat elections," said Duale.

MANUAL TRANSMISSION

Some of the changes the party is seeking make include reverting to manual transmission of election results.

This means forms 34A and 34B will be given priority and consequently transmission to the national tallying centre will be delayed until the details captured in them are verified at polling stations and constituency tallying centres.

In the August 8 some results were transmitted without the statutory forms.