Post by kamalet on Jan 13, 2007 13:00:39 GMT 3
Can these Commissioners steal the election for Kibaki???
I do not think so!
The media and the opposition are all up in arms critical of Kibaki for appointing new ECK Commissioners without consulting. From a strict legal point of view, the president is not required by the constitution to consult anyone before making these constitutional office appointments. He can appoint any cartoon to the posts and the only impediment would be the post of chairman which must be headed by a lawyer qualified to be a judge of the high court of kenya.
It will be argued that it behoves on Kibaki to observe democratic tenets when making these appointments and he is now being reminded of the 1997 IPPG deal that allowed political parties to have their own nominees. What we perhaps did not learn from that experience is that this did not improve the quality of the elections and there was still widespread rigging in 1997.
To alot of people, it seems that to have a pliant commissioner will ensure that the next commissioner does not commit any acts of rigging during the elections. This is so far from being correct. Commissioners have no direct role in the management of polling stations where the actual voting takes place and during an election their role is to collate results as they are announced, and they do not even supervise the actual vote count. When there are no elections, apart from resting their butts at Anniversary Towers, they are supposed to review electoral boundaries which is a constitutional requirement every ten years.
It does appear to many that the face of Kivuitu or Mukele is the face of the commission and if you are take the argument of the predictable LSK chairman, elections cannot be fair without Mukele and Kivuitu.
But ladies and gentlemen, we forget that there is a Secretary to the Commission who is the chief executive of the commission and responsible for the day to day running of the commission. He is the one that hires the returning officers, their deputies and polling station officials. Kivuitu's constitutional job is to gazette these officers as required by law. The staff of the commission are ordinary civil servants taking orders and instructions not from the commissioners or politicians, but their CEO. So if we are to vest the power of rigging, this can only be on the shoulders of the Secretary and not Kivuitu. Put it this way, Kivuitu is like a minister whilst the secretary is equivalent to a permanent secretary. We all know who keeps the pulse strings in a ministry....as is the case with the ECK!!!
So assuming we had ODM represented by 50% of the commissioners and NARC-K taking up the rest. Can this ensure a free and fair election?
As I have indicated above, election voting, stealing and rigging takes place at a polling station and certainly not at Anniversary Towers. Even with the law change in 2002 which made elections even more transparent (where vote counting takes place at a polling station), we still had instances of rigging and stealing of votes. The election petitions heard by our courts in the last 3 years does attest to election irregularities. In this case, you cannot even point a finger at the commissioners individually apart from the respective returning officers!
Kibaki has shown his middle finger to the opposition by making these appointments. I shall laud the appointment of 4 women amongst the crown as well as the regional distribution of the commissioners. Personally, I do not think they can steal the election for Kibaki for reasons given above. But I can look at something with reasonable certainty, Muturi Kigano will be the next chairman of ECK come December!
I do not think so!
The media and the opposition are all up in arms critical of Kibaki for appointing new ECK Commissioners without consulting. From a strict legal point of view, the president is not required by the constitution to consult anyone before making these constitutional office appointments. He can appoint any cartoon to the posts and the only impediment would be the post of chairman which must be headed by a lawyer qualified to be a judge of the high court of kenya.
It will be argued that it behoves on Kibaki to observe democratic tenets when making these appointments and he is now being reminded of the 1997 IPPG deal that allowed political parties to have their own nominees. What we perhaps did not learn from that experience is that this did not improve the quality of the elections and there was still widespread rigging in 1997.
To alot of people, it seems that to have a pliant commissioner will ensure that the next commissioner does not commit any acts of rigging during the elections. This is so far from being correct. Commissioners have no direct role in the management of polling stations where the actual voting takes place and during an election their role is to collate results as they are announced, and they do not even supervise the actual vote count. When there are no elections, apart from resting their butts at Anniversary Towers, they are supposed to review electoral boundaries which is a constitutional requirement every ten years.
It does appear to many that the face of Kivuitu or Mukele is the face of the commission and if you are take the argument of the predictable LSK chairman, elections cannot be fair without Mukele and Kivuitu.
But ladies and gentlemen, we forget that there is a Secretary to the Commission who is the chief executive of the commission and responsible for the day to day running of the commission. He is the one that hires the returning officers, their deputies and polling station officials. Kivuitu's constitutional job is to gazette these officers as required by law. The staff of the commission are ordinary civil servants taking orders and instructions not from the commissioners or politicians, but their CEO. So if we are to vest the power of rigging, this can only be on the shoulders of the Secretary and not Kivuitu. Put it this way, Kivuitu is like a minister whilst the secretary is equivalent to a permanent secretary. We all know who keeps the pulse strings in a ministry....as is the case with the ECK!!!
So assuming we had ODM represented by 50% of the commissioners and NARC-K taking up the rest. Can this ensure a free and fair election?
As I have indicated above, election voting, stealing and rigging takes place at a polling station and certainly not at Anniversary Towers. Even with the law change in 2002 which made elections even more transparent (where vote counting takes place at a polling station), we still had instances of rigging and stealing of votes. The election petitions heard by our courts in the last 3 years does attest to election irregularities. In this case, you cannot even point a finger at the commissioners individually apart from the respective returning officers!
Kibaki has shown his middle finger to the opposition by making these appointments. I shall laud the appointment of 4 women amongst the crown as well as the regional distribution of the commissioners. Personally, I do not think they can steal the election for Kibaki for reasons given above. But I can look at something with reasonable certainty, Muturi Kigano will be the next chairman of ECK come December!
