James Murimi @Jamesmurymy
The Council of Governors (CoG) has called on the electoral body’s commissioners to voluntarily resign from office to restore confidence in next year's General Election. Appearing before the joint select committee on Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) in Nairobi, COG Chairman Peter Munya said the commissioners should tender their resignations and be compensated for the remaining part of their term.
“Our position as governors is that all the commissioners should leave office and not a single one of them should remain. We need to move away from this culture of entitled to public offices.
The general public’s view is that they should leave office,” said Munya. The Meru governor said the commissioners should heed voices from religious leaders, civil society groups and part of political leadership and vacate office. Munya, who was accompanied by governors Kivutha Kibwana (Makueni) and John Mruttu (Taita Taveta), recommended that new commissioners should oversee one only General Election.
“The commission should never preside over two elections so that the history of the previous polls is not used to colour the next elections,” said Munya. He also said the commissioners should serve on part-time basis except during the year of General Election when they should serve on full-time basis.
Munya said all legal outstanding issues should be resolved through the courts so as not to alter the date of the next polls. “Proposals to extend the election date should take note of Article 255 (1) on the responsibility of a legal challenge if the extension is not endorsed by a referendum as such date affects the term of the President,” he said.
He said the National government should ease processes of issuance of identification cards, adding that the process should only take 30 days. Appearing before the same committee led by Senators Kiraitu Murungi and James Orengo, the Commission on Administrative Justice (CAJ) chairman Otiende Amollo said IEBC should be encouraged to “voluntarily and honourably” leave office to enable appointment of their successors in good time to prepare for the August 2017 elections.
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