The Opposition has claimed that they had agreed with the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to postpone the strategic plan launch.
CORD leader Raila Odinga, in a press release, said that the coalition and Narc Kenya leaders had met with IEBC officials on Wednesday ahead of the Thursday launch of the plan to give their views.
“At the Wednesday meeting, we expressed strong concerns about the strategic plan and appealed for postponement of the launch,” read the press release in part.
Raila explained that they had requested for more time to examine the strategic plan.
“We made this appeal based on our understanding that a strategic plan is an important tool in providing a sense of direction and outlining measurable goals, guiding day-to-day decisions and also for evaluating progress and changing approaches when moving forward,” he said.
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CORD officials accused IEBC of being ‘arrogant’ and biased to the Opposition in their launch of the plan, saying that it was an act of impunity aimed at testing the coalition’s resolve by pushing the country towards a controversial poll in two years time.
Raila disclosed that the concerns they shared with IEBC revolved around the process of creating the plan, the content and the technology the commission plans to use in the 2017 General Election.
After being left out of the process of creating the strategic plan, CORD believes that transparency and participation were lacking, thus reducing confidence in the electoral body. The coalition said IEBC should have considered that there are 47 counties while creating the document.
“The IEBC helped create these entities in the last General Election but makes no mention of them. They only address what they see as weak political parties. The law requires political parties to have offices in not less than half of the 47 counties to be fully registered. Operating an office requires money and political analysis should have acknowledged this fact and made recommendation to address this deliberate attempt to kill multi-party democracy,” he said.
The Opposition raised concern on the use of Biometric Voter Registration (BVR), the Electronic Voter Identification Device (EVID) on polling day and Results Transmission System (RTS) during tallying.
They believe that the systems were a phenomenal failure in the 2013 elections and accused IEBC’s strategic plan of not providing answers as to how these concerns will be addressed.
“The systems failed miserably, not because they encountered technological problems, but because they were apparently designed to fail,” claimed Raila. He cited the Post-Election Evaluation Report as confirmation to their claims that the systems failed in 2013 and the same could happen in 2017.
Machakos Senator and CORD co-chair, Johnson Muthama, echoed Raila’s sentiments saying IEBC did not instil confidence in majority Kenyans. “They cannot show that they can sustain the 2017 elections. They should therefore not govern the elections if there is no credibility. Kenyans will take nothing short of total reforms of the polls body,” he said at his Gigiri office in Nairobi.
Mr Muthama insisted that CORD would not participate in the 2017 elections if IEBC will oversee them.
“We are watching this turn of events closely with a view to taking very specific steps in the interest of the country, good governance and democracy,” said Raila.
