Moving Kenyan elections to December 2012 is a bad idea

By John Harrington Ndeta , Ajabu Africa, Posted November 22, 2011

NAIROBI, Kenya_The debate about rescheduling of Kenya’s first general elections under the new constitution from August to December next year has generated one of the most heated public debates.

 It has proven to be thorny that even the Supreme Court doesn’t want to touch it. There is need for a genuine, sincere and well meaning effort on the part of the leaders to enlighten all Kenyans paving way for reason to prevail in 2012.

Article 101, Subsection 1, of the Constitution states that “General elections should be held second Tuesday of August of every fifth year.” Some top government brass, led by the cabinet members  have argued that logistical issues hamper the efforts to hold the elections in August 2012 and are therefore proposing that they should be held in December. 

Listening to their point of view would indicate that it will be impossible to hold elections in the month of August in the future. Our leaders’ reasoning stems from the fact that budgetary provisions for the elections will only be factored in and approved in June when the government presents its financial estimates.  According to them budget estimates pose huge logistical challenges that cannot be surmounted by August 2012 enabling elections to be successfully held.

 If Kenyans give in to the demand that we do not have the money and therefore logistical issues will hinder elections in August, it will translate into the same scenario every election year.  Budget estimates are read in June of every year. This would leave us with less than two months in which to organize for elections.

But the question is whether we should peg the election funding on annual budgetary estimates? Can’t we have the election budget developed and sourced for separately from the annual government budgets so that elections can be funded early? What the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission needs to do on a continuous basis is to register voters, regularly revise the voters’ rolls, delimit constituencies and regulate the nomination of candidates by political parties. Some of these mandates can be implemented from the day the commissioners are sworn in.

Another issue is that we will have too many elections on the same day; up to six in one day. There will be elections for the president, deputy president, members of parliament, senators, governors and members of county assemblies. Granted, this may be a logistical nightmare but it is not true that moving the elections to December helps the situation.

What the Electoral body needs to do is to start preparations early enough regardless of whether the elections will be held in August or December.  All the logistical issues related to conducting six elections in a day can be resolved by recruiting the election officers in time and training them.
 
When the Committee of Experts led by Nzamba Kitonga settled on the second Tuesday of August as the date for general elections, they must have put into consideration a lot of factors.

The CoE which harmonized views and issues that were contentious on the proposed constitution; views that took Kenyans over 20 years to have a majority of 67 percent say “yes” to the new constitution at the 2010 referendum must not be overlooked when thinking about amending the constitution.

Traditionally, the general elections have been held in December. This is the time when most Kenyans are on vacation. Such a period has various implications on an electoral process and vice versa.

First, while December provides humble time for most Kenyans to vote because they are not working, the process exerts more pressure on Kenyans who would wish to enjoy the festive season.  It is when Kenyans are freer and have much time that violence is likely to be on the high. Thus August verses December leaves August as a better choice for elections.

Second, if opinion polls are anything to go by, chances are that we will have a rerun for the president. A rerun under the new constitution would be held three months after the general elections pitting the winner against the first runners-up. The implication of moving general elections to December is that we will have reruns somewhere in March. Assuming that the elections are not contested, two weeks later say in April, is when we will have a new president of Kenya.

The current legislators have argued that if elections are held in August, they will lose several months’ pay.

However if we push the elections to December for the sake of the curent law makers, and revert back to august, every parliamentarian or elected leader in subsequent elections will still lose some pay.

The new constitution; being a set of laws that define the way Kenya governs herself is the supreme law of the land. This constitution spells out agreement between people and their leaders on how they want to address their common interests and needs.

It indeed specifies how the government will be constituted, and who will have the power to take which decisions.

This is the reason why Kenyans embarked on the road to review their constitution in order to have laws that reflect their aspirations. The people’s representatives must not jeopardize this venture.

The Author is Knowledge Management Officer,
PeaceNet Kenya

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