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Kenya: Besieged ECK Officials Skip Kriegler's Meeting
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
7 May 2008
Posted to the web 7 May 2008
Abiya Ochola And Beautah Omanga
Nairobi
Commissioners of the embattled Electoral Commission of Kenya gave the Independent Review Commission (Irec) a wide berth as glaring loopholes in the 2007 electoral process emerged.
On Tuesday, ECK sent technocrats to an Irec session contrary to expectations that the electoral body's besieged commissioners were to give a detailed explanation of the entire process.
ECK chairman Mr Samuel Kivuitu was quoted in the Press saying the commission would appear before Irec.
Tuesday's session turned stormy as Irec commissioners put the ECK technocrats to task over some processes.
Retired South African judge, Mr Johann Kriegler chairs the commission.
The technocrats, Deputy Secretary Mr Suleiman Chege, Elections manager Mr Phillip Chepsat, Media Liaison Officer Mr Francis Musyoka and Legal Adviser, Ms Jemimah Keli, found themselves in unfamiliar waters as Irec punched holes in the elections as commissioners sought clarification on electoral matters.
"This was not a public hearing, simply a session to explain the electoral process in detail to the review commission. That is why we came and not the commissioners," said Musyoka after the session at KICC.
During the session, it emerged that there were glaring loopholes during voting.
For instance, contrary to Regulation 30 of the ECK voting rules, where a voter picked all the three ballot papers for the presidential, parliamentary and civic elections, the practice in last year's election was for a voter to pick one ballot at a time and cast the vote.
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A voter could, therefore, go back on the queue and pick a presidential ballot again.
The ECK did not have the legal authority to enforce the Code of Conduct.
"The Code of Conduct does not expressly say what the ECK should do if an offender defaults to pay a fine. Even those who were fined last year have not paid up, and there is nothing we can do," said Keli.
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