It has become the norm
now that the opposition, through their cry-wolf politics and their
irresponsible habit of playing to the gallery on every issue are defining the
public perceptions in a style that paints the government in a bad light at
every turn.
They have recently been
on the rampage, alleging that the government is out to rig the December election,
and that the President's appointment of new commissioners to the Electoral
Commission is a tell-tale sign of what is going on behind the scenes. In the heightened electoral atmosphere this is
likely to fall on the very receptive ears of a restive public that the ODM is
cynically looking to manipulate into frenzy. What does it mean for our politics
though, and is the ODM rigging the elections by crying out in this fashion,
essentially broadcasting that any result that does not give them a victory is a
rigged one?
To give their allegations
a veneer of a relation to reality, the party has attempted to use the 1997 IPPG
agreements to cast the President in a bad light. But what is the IPPG and with what
responsibilities and duties does it burden the Head of State?
IPPG is the Inter-Parties Parliamentary Group; it was a coming together of KANU,
the Democratic Party, FORD-Kenya, FORD-Asili and Safina. Please note that the other
parliamentary party at that time, Raila Odinga's NDP elected not to participate
in the IPPG talks and hence did not benefit from the agreement - i.e. it was
not party to the agreement.
With specific regard to nomination of ECK commissioners, the IPPG agreement
provided that each of the parliamentary parties with more than 5 parliamentary seats
be allocated part of the 11 seats in the commission. This would be done in
accordance with the number of seats each of the parties had in parliament. The qualified
parties would then forward to the President a list of nominees in accordance
with the number of openings allocated to them. Crucially, the President was not
required to consult anyone in the appointment of the commissioners, but was only
required to take into consideration the names provided by the respective
parties.
Let us consider then the specific situation that President Kibaki finds himself
in this year. By the time parliament was dissolved, Kenya's politics had evolved so much as to make
complete nonsense of the political party formations that existed when the 9th
parliament was inaugurated. It is perhaps only KANU that has survived, but even
the Uhuru faction has lost most of its members to the three new kids on the
block - the Party of National Unity, the ODM-K and the ODM.
On the basis of the IPPG agreement State House was expected to receive for consideration nominees from the agreeing
parties in the IPPG arrangement. Note that no law was promulgated to compel
State House to consider nominees from non-contracting parties or parties with
lower than five sitting MPs. It is instructive however, that even were State
House to decide to be charitable there is no mechanism extant by which these
seats would be distributed. How many seats for example should be filled by
ODM-K nominees under such an agreement? How many by PNU nominees? Perhaps one
might think, the President should have filled these positions before the dissolution
of Parliament, and maybe conducted a poll of MPs asking them what party they
were affiliated with and in this way computed the allocations. But the
constitution is particularly clear that nominations cannot be received when a
commissioner is still in office. Remember also that the ODM parties were
especially adamant that State House dissolve parliament as soon as possible.
It is clear then that the
IPPG agreement, which as the Electoral Commission chairman has made clear is
not entrenched in law- not even after 10 years of its signing- is not exactly workable
in our circumstances. This we must say is clear to the ODM politician. So what are they complaining about and
does it really matter who sits in these positions?
ODM has alleged that the president is putting into the commission his cronies,
men and women who can swing the election in the PNU's favour. But is this
possible? Does a committee of men and women in Nairobi really have the ability to rig an election? No,
it does not. The commission has no way of determining the results in a polling
station, which is where the tallying takes place. Once the results have been announced from the polling stations, all the national organisation does is add up the numbers. It is the returning officers who
are legally responsible for the elections, and it is only they who have the opportunity to rig the election. The Chairman of the electoral
commission merely gazettes the appointments of these officers.
This was made crystal
clear in the 1997 elections. In spite of the fact that opposition nominated
commissioners sat on the ECK board, the election was rigged and irregularities
to KANU's benefit were reported across the country. But it will not be the first time or the last
that the ODM has tried to work up the country against the authorities. Kenyans
must guard themselves against this culture of preaching falsehoods, and against
ODM's naked attempt to destabilize the country if the elections do not go their
way.
President Kibaki has
simply followed the law, and used the powers accorded to his office in
appointing the new commissioners.
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Besides if he believes he will win freely and fairly, why be so controversial, he shld give them a chance to suggest a few names.