Aukot: We have all 1m signatures to alter law

Proponents of a populist initiative to amend the Constitution have claimed it has met the threshold to require submission of the draft Bill to county assemblies.

Thirdway Alliance, which has sponsored the 'Punguza Mizigo' (Constitution of Kenya Amendment Bill), yesterday insisted verification of signatures by the electoral commission had found the Bill is supported by the requisite one million registered voters.

The Bill advocates the reduction of the number of MPs from the current 416 to 147, caps monthly salaries of elected leaders to a maximum pay of Sh500,000 for the president and Sh300,000 for MPs, as well as increasing counties' share of national revenue from 15 per cent to at least 35 per cent.

Yesterday, Thirdway Alliance party leader Ekuru Aukot said the physical verification of the signatures shows that they have met the threshold - at least one million registered voters - and challenged the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to disclose the findings.

Dr Aukot said the only pending scrutiny is of 60,000 signatures that IEBC said needed to be run against soft copies to confirm whether there was a duplication or not. But he said even if these were ruled out, the remaining signatures are more than one million.

“We had our team during the entire exercise and they have confirmed to us that we met the threshold. We don’t understand why there is a delay,” said Aukot.

The physical verification was to ascertain that the signatures were by genuine voters.

The Constitution provides that if IEBC confirms an amendment to the Constitution through a popular initiative meets the requisite threshold, the draft Bill is submitted to county assemblies for debate.

County assemblies

Aukot argued that the electoral commission has no reason not to handover the process to all the 47 county assemblies.

According to a letter written by IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati to Thirdway Alliance dated July 1, 2019, the verification would be completed by July 19 when the signatures are run against the IEBC's database to confirm validity of registered voters.

“The referendum project and technical support team has now embarked on reviewing the data captured by the clerks for completeness, accuracy and validity before the same is verified against the register of voters,” reads part of Mr Chebukati’s letter to Aukot.

Chebukati’s letter further confirmed that the process of verification of signatures had been completed after data was confirmed by the clerks.

Yesterday, Chebukati neither answered calls nor responded to our text messages asking whether the initiative had attained the one million signatures.

If the draft Bill is given the green light by IEBC, it will require the support of majority of county assemblies (24).

The Bill has sweeteners for MCAs including retention of the 1,450 wards, which it recognises as the primary units of accelerated development hence replacing the constituency development fund now in the hands of MPs.

Ward reps have been fighting to be allocated ward development funds and the prospect of being awarded a kitty equivalent to CDF will be music to their ears. 

Should more than 24 county assemblies adopt the Bill, it will be presented before Parliament for debate. It is considered passed if both Houses approve it by a majority.

The proposal to elevate the Senate to be an upper House with veto powers "to ensure that the National Assembly is checked" is calculated to win the support of senators. The Senate would only lose 20 slots - in exchange for elevation to upper House - compared to the National Assembly that loses 249 members.

But even if one of the Houses does not approve the Bill, it would be taken to a referendum where the Bill hopes to ride on populist proposals like reducing the number of MPs to win over the public. 

"It does not make sense that a population of 46 million people from a poor developing country like Kenya would have and be able to sustain 416 representatives in Parliament," reads the Bill that proposes 100 members of the National Assembly and 47 senators.

It proposes that the 47 counties are used as a single constituency for purposes of parliamentary elections to the Senate and National Assembly.

Others proposals include life sentence for suspects convicted of corruption and theft of public funds as well as the requirement that corruption cases are tried within 30 days and all appeals concluded within 15 days.

It also introduces a single seven-year term presidency and the requirement that every Kenyan aged 18 years and who acquires a national identity card shall be deemed to be a fully registered voter for purposes of elections.

Table findings

The initiative appears to beat the Building Bridges Initiative that is set to table its findings in October.

Yesterday, it emerged that it is impossible to add other proposals to the already drafted Bill. This is because the signatories were persuaded to sign up based on the specific provisions and any alteration would require consulting all the signatories, which legal experts warned is impossible.

Nzamba Kitonga, the former chair of the Committee of Experts that midwifed the Constitution, argued that it’s not possible to make an additional issue to an already ongoing process.

“This is a matter that might bring legal controversy. If those who signed up for particular issues agree, then that’s a different case. In this case it's not possible. The proponents of the initiative cannot go back to all those who signed and ask them to accept additional issues,” said Mr Kitonga.