Anxiety over selection of team to oversee polls

By Martin Mutua 

The election clock is ticking, next year is beckoning, but a delay in publishing and gazetting a crucial Bill already assented to by the President is holding back everything.

This is despite the fact all eyes are turning onto President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the seven-member faceless panel they are supposed to pick to the commission to manage the elections.

But time is running out for the two who are expected to meet either on Wednesday or Thursday to also agree on the nominee for office of Attorney General. The current AG, Amos Wako, is supposed to leave office next month.

The delay stems from the fact the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission Bill, which got the President’s seal on July 5, is yet to come into effect since the Government Printer has not published it.

IEBC will be charged with responsibility of realigning the political landscape with the creation of 80 new constituencies, which will bring the total to 290.

The deadline for the President and PM to pick the initial seven-member commission, which itself has to be vetted by Parliament just like the team it will interview and propose to manage next year’s election, is 14 days from the time the IEBC Bill is published.

What is worrying interested groups is that the process of setting up the two teams is long-drawn and time-consuming.

Kenya is expected have a new elections body by August 27 – 12 months before the General Election.

First, the two principals will have to agree on who will sit on the panel of seven, and present the names to Parliament for approval after it reconvenes next week. This means members of the selection panel will have to undergo vetting by a House Committee, most likely Parliamentary Oversight Committee on the Implementation of the Constitution, which is led by Mandera Central MP Abdikadir Mohammed. The Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, which Budalang’i MP, Ababu Namwamba, chaired has not been reconstituted.

The President and PM have the constitutional leeway to appoint two members each from opposite gender while Judicial Service Commission has been given a slot.

The rest of the nominees are to come from Kenya Anti-Corruption Advisory Board, and Association of Professional Societies of East Africa.

Debate over the picking of new commissioners for IEBC is expected to dominate the House when it resumes sittings next Tuesday.

Rigorous vetting

According to the new law once published by Government Printer, the process towards picking the new commissioners is automatically set in motion. Thereafter, the selection panel will go through rigorous parliamentary vetting and approval.

The delay by the two principals could have been deliberate: The 14 days could have lapsed when Parliament was on recess had Kibaki and Raila picked the names earlier.

During debate in Parliament last year, Gichugu MP Martha who moved the amendment on selection of the seven, argued this would ensure that power to appoint IEBC commissioners could be wrestled from one body and guarantee transparency unlike in the past when the Executive had exclusive say.

Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo said he was disappointed that whereas the President had fulfilled his obligation of signing the Bill into law, the Government Printer was yet to print even one copy.

“By law even if we only have one copy printed it will trigger a lot of activities. I do not understand why that has been delayed because by today (yesterday) I have not seen any copy,” he added.

Mutula, however, said he would wish once Parliament reconvenes the names of the selection panel would form the first agenda of the House.

 “I hope the two principals will by then have their nominees ready, as well as the other nominating bodies so that we can dispense of this matter immediately,” said Mutula.

“The Government Printer cannot amend it unless of course they want to attempt what they did with the Proposed Constitution last time. I can assure them it will not be forgivable this time,” warned Mutula.

The minister said there was no time to waste, especially now that there is no departmental committee on Justice and Legal Affairs to deal with the matter. “It seems I will still have to rely on the CIOC to eliminate any suspicions of election malpractice before, during, and after the 2012 General Election,” said Mutula.

Abdikadir said his committee was ready, and willing to undertake any assignments given to it by the House for the purposes of ensuring smooth implementation of the Constitution.

 “If we are assigned the task of vetting the selection panel we would undertake it with the zeal with which we have undertaken previous assignments,” he promised.

The new laws criminalise subversion of free and fair elections, obstruction of the commission, or interference with its functions.

It states that those found to have committed those crimes could be jailed for a term not exceeding three years, or a fine not exceeding Sh1 million or both.

It further makes it punitive by stating any person convicted of any such offence shall not be eligible to hold any public office for a period of 10 years after conviction.

It also mandates the new body to deal with the issues arising out of the first review of the redistribution of such wards or administrative units in the affected constituencies as may be appropriate.

However, this may be subject to the Constitution addressing issues of new constituencies falling outside the population quota as provided for by Article 89 (6) of the Constitution but at the same time ensuring that such a process takes into account several factors.

They include provisions of Article 89 (7), which stipulates that in undertaking this work the commission shall consult all interested parties and progressively work towards ensuring that the number of residents of each constituency and ward is, as nearly as possible equal to the population quota.