Deadline for boundary review comes as row persists

By MARTIN MUTUA and VITALIS KIMUTAI

The shape of the political landscape that will influence the General Election will be known this morning, when the names of 80 proposed constituencies are unveiled.

This will increase the number of constituencies from the current 210 to 290. The number of wards will also rise.

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman, Isaack Hassan will lead commissioners in presenting the report on the creation of the 80 new electoral units to the Parliamentary Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs chaired by Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba.

The report will be unveiled amid a storm fanned by MPs who claim IEBC ignored their concerns when drawing up the new constituencies. The MPs have threatened to go to court to stop the report from being made public. Others have said they will sue the commission if it does not split their constituencies. But Hassan has dismissed the threats as "ill-informed and premature".

Said Hassan: "Even if they move to court, we would simply oppose it because there is a 30-day provision for interested parties to challenge the report once Parliament is done with it," he said.

Hassan said the commissioners are not worried about possible legal challenges because the rules and timelines on when such lawsuits should be filed are clear.

Hassan expressed surprise the same MPs who passed in Parliament the guidelines on how to challenge the report on delimitation of electoral boundaries that also gave birth to the IEBC Act, could mislead the public that they could stop the report.

Political temperatures

The IEBC launched the preliminary report on the delimitation of boundaries for constituencies and wards on January 9, and then invited the public to debate and raise queries on it. Under the IEBC Act 2011, the commission is mandated to resolve all issues arising from the First Review relating to the delimitation of boundaries of constituencies and wards.

In reviewing constituencies and wards, the IEBC relied on the report of the defunct Interim Independent Boundaries Commission (IIBRC) popularly referred to as the Ligale Report, as its primary reference material, and the report by the Parliamentary Departmental Committee on justice and Legal Affairs as the secondary reference material, among other resources.

The Ligale Report, which equally raised political temperatures when it was released, delineated the 80 constituencies. Most MPs supported it.

When the IEBC was appointed in November, last year, their first task was to study and analyze the Ligale and the parliamentary reports on electoral boundaries.

It then developed the preliminary report outlining the proposed delimitation and specific geographical and other demographic details.

The commission has since been traversing the country, collecting views on the proposed boundaries.

The list produced by the Ligale-led commission in December 2010 was not gazetted following objections from PNU MPs, who claimed the new electoral units favoured ODM strongholds.

The report was eventually accepted after acrimonious debate, and only after the MPs agreed that its recommended list of new constituencies would only serve as reference for the IEBC when carrying out the process afresh.

According to the IIBRC proposals, Rift Valley was to get 26 new constituencies, Nairobi, Nyanza, and Western nine each, Eastern seven, North Eastern six, and Coast and Central four each.

This would have seen the 290 constituencies distributed as follows: Coast Province 26, North Eastern 18, Eastern 44, Central 33, Rift Valley 74, Western 33, Nyanza 42, and Nairobi 17.

IEBC Director, Legal and Public Affairs Praxedes Tororey, also refuted the claims saying the commission was accorded all proposals and recommendations due attention, and applied constitutional and legal provisions governing delimitation.

"We are consolidating submissions, both recorded and verbal presentations at the county hearings and the proposals emailed and posted to us. These issues, which arise from the first review, are being analysed and subjected to constitutional and legal parameter," said Tororey.

She said that IEBC would do all it can to consider all submissions fairly, but the law allows for petitions by those who may not be satisfied.

"The process is guided by laws and rules. There are also mathematical merits that give certain thresholds," she added.

Mathira MP Ephraim Maina and his Wajir South counterpart Muhamud Sirat have threatened to move to court to bar IEBC from using the Ligale Report to draw up new electoral units.

The MPs are demanding IEBC conduct the process afresh and consider public complaints and proposals. The committee will study the report and table it in Parliament with recommendations. MPs will then debate it for seven days and forward it for publication in the Kenya Gazzette.

After this, any aggrieved party is free to move to the High Court within 30 days to challenge the report. The court is expected to make a decision on the matter within three months.

Parliament will then debate the ruling within seven days and forward its resolutions to IEBC, which will be expected to prepare and publish the final report in the Kenya Gazette, two weeks after receiving Parliament’s recommendations.

The IEBC will map out the new units and gazette new polling centres after the court has ruled.