CORD’s new strategy against IEBC over 2017

By GEOFFREY MOSOKU

Kenya: CORD wants senior officials of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) investigated over their management of last year’s presidential election.

This is a change in tactics by the opposition coalition to try and force the IEBC team, led by Chairman Ahmed Isaack Hassan, out of office.

On Wednesday, the ruling Jubilee alliance vowed to block any attempts to disband the electoral body.

CORD had initially planned to present a petition in Parliament calling for the removal of the IEBC commissioners for allegedly bungling last year’s presidential election.

Although the Supreme Court ruled last year that President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto had won the election, CORD will write to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keriako Tobiko, asking him to initiate investigations and possibly prosecute the commissioners over the failure of the electronic voter identification devices on the Election Day.

“If the DPP fails to prosecute the commissioners, the Constitution allows anyone to initiate private prosecution, an option that CORD will explore. Once we reach that stage, the commissioners will be compelled to step aside and this will allow us to reform the electoral body,” Homa Bay Town MP Peter Kaluma said.

Presidential results

“There is no way we can face another election with this commission in place. We cannot just sit and watch the country go to the dogs,” CORD co-principal and former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka told a press conference at Serena Hotel yesterday.

Another option is to push for a review of how the final presidential results are announced by the IEBC, by seeking an amendment of the Elections Act, rather than targeting the commissioners.

However, this would be a more difficult route since CORD would have to win over enough Jubilee MPs.

Under the plan, the Elections Act would be amended to allow returning officers in the counties to announce the final presidential election tally. Currently, the results announced at the county level are treated by the IEBC as provisional because, the IEBC chairman is the returning officer in presidential election.

CORD MPs say gazetting results announced by constituency and county returning officers as final would make it difficult for anyone to manipulate the final tally at the national tallying centre.

“Cooking or tampering with the results is done at the national tallying centres and we want to see how we can structure this system to reflect the role of counties,” said acting ODM party leader Prof Anyang Nyong’o.

He said CORD MPs would present different Bills at both the Senate and National Assembly to restructure the electoral body.

The coalition also wants to abolish manual registers and make it compulsory for all the results to be transmitted electronically. As it stands, both electronic and manual systems are provided for in the law.

Double registration

This, they argue, would help in weeding out incidents of double registration of voters, or cases of dead voters’ names resurfacing during polls.

Initially, CORD had wanted to push for the removal from office of IEBC commissioners through Parliament as happened to their predecessors in the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya.

But on Wednesday, Jubilee held a press conference where they warned CORD that their plan to discredit IEBC would not succeed.

National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale who led about 30 MPs to address reporters told CORD to stop blaming the commission and instead demand answers to the opposition’s loss from former Prime Minister and CORD co-principal Raila Odinga.

“We know they have a scheme to sponsor a petition to Parliament to disband the IEBC, but we are telling them that the scheme will not succeed,” said Duale, adding that IEBC delivered credible elections.

Yesterday’s CORD statement that was read by Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba praised The Standard Group for KTN television’s Jicho Pevu and The Inside Story investigative series saying their recent expose on the March 4, 2013 General Election titled “50% +1” revealed alleged weaknesses in the IEBC.

They said the investigation vindicated their long-held view that presidential election should have ended with a run-off between the Uhuru-Ruto team and Raila-Kalonzo.

Biased polls

“As nature would have it, the ghosts of the bungled elections still loom large. Not even the belated public machinations by IEBC can wish them away. The truth will ultimately prevail,” said Ababu.

CORD claimed it was clear that IEBC was not the independent body envisaged in the Constitution, alleging that the elections’ body was not impartial during the polls.

“It instead blatantly mortgaged its independence to the security and business interests hell bent on seeing a Jubilee government in power,” Ababu added.