A defiant Wafula Chebukati has vowed to stay
put at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC),
accusing the three commissioners who quit on Monday of being unable to
accommodate divergent views.
In a
three-page statement, Mr Chebukati said that all was well at the
commission despite the quitting of Connie Nkatha Maina (vice-chair), Dr
Paul Kurgat, and Ms Margaret Mwachanya.
MEETINGS
"The
commission assures the public that its operations are on course and we
remain focused on delivering our constitutional mandate," Mr Chebukati
said in a statement.
"As the
chairman, I am committed to the course of transforming the country's
electoral management body to make it more responsive and professional."
The
embattled IEBC chair said the Nkatha trio had not resigned out of
principle, but “the real reason for their resignation is the plenary
decision to hold commission secretary (Ezra Chiloba) to account.”
"Their action demonstrates lack of capacity to lead in difficult times and accommodate divergent views," said Mr Chebukati.
The
commissioners, Mr Chebukati said, had a chance to air their grievances
during a crisis meeting held in Naivasha on April 13, which he said they
did not.
“They would also have introduced a motion to ask the commission chair the plenary decision,” Mr Chebukati said in the statement.
BY-ELECTIONS
But
in an admission of what bedevils the already crippled commission, Mr
Chebukati said there was no mechanism to fill the four vacant posts.
“Parliament
is yet to enact legislation providing for the recruitment of
commissioners subsequent to the first replacement in the event a vacancy
occurs,” said Mr Chebukati.
“As
such, we are requesting the relevant government organs to act
appropriately to ensure that the commission’s operations are not
stifled.”
Mr Chebukati said the by-elections in Kinondo and Rugru county assembly wards would go on.
The returning officers, he said, had been gazetted and the polls will be supervised by commissioners Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu.
“In accordance with the law, the election results will be declared by the ROs and gazetted by the chairman,” he said.
CRIPPLED
Senior
lawyers Paul Muite, Nzamba Kitonga, and James Orengo have argued that
the fact that the commission was left with only three of the maximum
seven commissioners makes it no longer tenable.
“This commission is cursed,” said Mr Orengo, the Senate minority leader.
“The
resignations at the IEBC are a symptom of an incurable cancerous
disease that bedevils the commission. Without a doubt it undermines the
legitimacy of the Jubilee administration, and confirms that its election
was an electoral fraud.”
Mr Muite
warned that if the current IEBC were to continue transacting business,
they risk the case of the anti-corruption commission which had cases
thrown out because they were brought to court when the agency did not
have commissioners.
The IEBC Act
states that the quorum for the commission to conduct business is five
commissioners, and an amendment to the law last year to reduce it to
three, was last week quashed by the High Court as being
unconstitutional.
“The remaining
three commissioners cannot continue to conduct any business. They do not
have quorum. They have two viable options: To resign now and let the
new team be appointed, or that the vacant positions are filled,” said Mr
Kitonga, who chaired the Committee of Experts that drafted the 2010
Constitution.
'RESIGN'
Senate
majority leader Kipchumba Murkomen was the first to call for the
Chebukati trio to follow the Nkatha trio and hand in their resignations
as well.
“If they do not resign in
seven days, we will then institute proceedings to ask Parliament to form
a tribunal to investigate. If they are found guilty, they must go home.
That is unless they do the honourable thing now and save the country
this whole charade,” he said.
The
Elgeyo-Marakwet senator said they had opposed the disbandment of the
IEBC in the 2017 polls, saying “we had to put up with a difficult
commission.”
“We all agree that we
can even reduce the commission to three, just two of them and the chair
and a very able secretariat. You find now that when they are too many,
there are cases of idle commissioners who now go and intrude (sic) to
the role of the secretariat,” said Mr Murkomen.
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