Chief Justice David Maraga and IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati. [Photo/Daily Nation]
President Uhuru Kenyatta's Jubilee party has agreed to push for amendments that will have an impact on Chief Justice David Maraga and IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati.
Among the amendments, the ruling party has agreed to push for include the replacement of controversial electronic vote transmission system with the manual system and the introduction of a clause seeking to strip Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice the sole role of swearing in a president-elect.In a meeting led by Uhuru and his deputy Ruto on Monday at State House, the leaders agreed to pass that "any judge of the Supreme Court can swear the president-elect".
This would mean amending Section 141(1) of the Constitution which states that “the swearing in of the President-elect shall be in public before the Chief Justice, or, in the absence of the Chief Justice, the Deputy Chief Justice.”
They also want to a complimentary vote tally transmission process(Manual) strengthened where the electronic one fails.
These stringent amendments come in after NASA won the petition against Uhuru's victory largely based on errors or omissions that marred the electronic transmission of results. According to DP Ruto, the move will safeguard the common mwanainchi sovereign powers.
“We want to ensure the mischief and loopholes that were used in the nullification of a fairly won election do not happen again,” he said.
Jubilee also wants to amend the law that states final results pronounced at constituency level and captured in Form 34A electronically be final for the presidential elections and in case of electronic failure manual tallying should be allowed.
Two committees, Budget Committee and the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, will be established albeit on a temporary basis to oversee the two motions on the Supplementary Budget and the amendments to the electoral laws.
Political pundits have claimed that the move to have any judge of the Supreme Court swear in the president is a plot to put Maraga out of the way in case Uhuru wins the repeat polls or in the event of no elections.