Joint committee yet to agree on mode of picking IEBC bosses

Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on IEBC members consult during their meetings. (Photo: File/Standard)

The ruling coalition and the Opposition have agreed on a number of issues in the ongoing talks on electoral reforms.

But they are still deadlocked on crucial items.

Sources said contentious issues include the mode of appointment of commissioners to oversee the next General Election and whether their tenures will be part-time or full-time.

In what is turning out to be a major sticky point in the ongoing talks at Windsor Hotel in Nairobi, CORD has proposed a minimum of five and a maximum of seven commissioners nominated directly by the majority and minority parties, with one slot reserved for civil society.

This means that in case of five commissioners, the two coalitions will nominate two commissioners each, and in the case of seven, they will nominate three each.

Selection panel

Jubilee, however, wants the involvement of a selection panel whose members would be competitively recruited by the Public Service Commission (PSC).

According to Jubilee, the selection panel would consist of two members of the PSC who are not sitting members of Parliament, and five others representing religious organisations - the Catholic church, National Council of Churches of Kenya, Hindu Council of Kenya, Evangelical Association of Kenya and the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims.

The panel would then recruit nine full-time commissioners in a public process.

There is also no agreement on the voter register, a key point of departure at proceedings of the joint parliamentary select committee.

While CORD is demanding a fresh voter register, the Jubilee side favours a clean-up of the current register on grounds that a new register would be expensive and time consuming with only 12 months to the next elections. The Jubilee position agrees with a presentation made by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) when the commissioners appeared before the committee last week.

Another sticky issue is the presidential petition, as CORD wants IEBC to supply the Supreme Court with all materials and documents used to declare a presidential result automatically within 48 hours.

But Jubilee says IEBC should supply all the party agents with all materials and documents after the elections.

The committee retreated at the end of last week to collate its report, which is expected to propose policy and legal reforms to the country’s electoral system. In a major point of agreement, CORD and Jubilee have agreed that there should be no constitutional amendments before the next General Election.

Another key issue that the two sides have agreed on, according to documents, is the announcement of presidential results at polling stations, one of the key demands by the Opposition. There is consensus that results of the presidential poll will be announced at the polling station, collated at the constituency level, before the final announcement is made at the national tallying centre.

The Opposition is also yet to present its position on the role of IEBC in party nominations and the time when party lists should be submitted. Jubilee favours a position where the electoral agency is funded by the exchequer to conduct party primaries.