President Uhuru leads Jubilee MPs in pushing for election law changes

Murang'a County Women representative Sabina Chege, Nominated senator David Ole Sankok, Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria and former Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba dance during a rally held at Nakuru Railways grounds on September 25, 2017. Photo by Kennedy Gachuhi

Jubilee Party has resolved to change the electoral laws to entrench the manual transmission of election results.

In annulling the August 8 presidential election, the Supreme Court cited errors in the electronic method of transmitting the results.

Jubilee MPs on Tuesday resolved to inject some clarity into the law and have the manual declaration as the legal basis for a final declaration of the vote, with the electronic system only serving as a back-up.

President Uhuru Kenyatta chaired the Party Parliamentary Group meeting in State House, where the decision to amend Section 83 of the Elections Act to entrench the manual process of vote counting and transmission was reached.

The section reads: “No election shall be declared to be void by reason of non-compliance with any written law relating to that election if it appears that the election was conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Constitution and in that written law or that the non-compliance did not affect the result of the election.”

Jubilee argues that the law is ambiguous on the accepted system of result transmission.

“We want to deal with any ambiguity in the electoral laws so we do not end up in the situation we are in at the moment,” said nominated Senator Isaac Mwaura.

The meeting also discussed the need to include a clause in the law that will make it mandatory for the Supreme Court to order a ballot recount in the event of a presidential election petition.

The MPs resolved to have the law amended before the repeat election scheduled for October 26.

According to sources at the meeting, the party leaders were tasked with working out the proposed amendments and ensuring that they were brought to the House in good time to have them passed before the repeat poll.

The proposed amendment found its way to a debate in the National Assembly, with Majority Whip Jimmy Angwenyi saying the electronic aspect of vote transmission should be done away with and manual vote tallying and transmission adopted.

“If such serious democracies like Germany are doing their polls and even transmission manually, who are we? If it is this electronic vote transmission that is causing us all the problems, we need to do away with it,” said Mr Angwenyi.

Section 83 was cited often during the presidential petition filed by National Super Alliance (NASA) leader Raila Odinga and led to the nullification of the August 8 presidential election, with judges returning a divergent understanding of the law.

In the planning of the October 26 election, the meeting resolved that all elected MPs would take up the role of chief agents in their respective constituencies.

“The MPs will be in charge of all the other party agents. They will oversee the signing of the vital form 34A,” said Leader of Majority Aden Duale.

The MPs were taken through the election process by Jubilee Party chief agents Davis Chirchir and Winnie Guchu, including filling the requisite forms.

Chief agents

In areas where the party did not win any seats, Jubilee candidates who vied and lost will act as the chief agents.

Deputy President William Ruto said the party wanted to ensure that it had agents in all polling stations and that party leaders were well acquainted with election rules.

“We want to make sure that the mischief and loopholes used to nullify a fairly won election do not happen again,” said the DP.

The MPs further resolved to put on hold the formation of House committees until after the repeat election.

However, the Budget as well as the Justice and Legal Affairs committees will be established to oversee two motions on the Supplementary Budget and the amendments to the electoral laws.