Azimio la Umoja on Sunday, July 7, issued President William Ruto with an ultimatum to assent to the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Amendment Bill, 2024 before the day lapses.
Led by former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, the leaders termed the Bill as one of the issues from the National Dialogue Committee (NADCO) report that ought to be prioritised.
Kalonzo who was speaking in Meru County complained that NADCO had proposed laws and proposals to make the country better only for the document to gather dust at the National Assembly.
“The culmination of NADCO was to draft bills that are now lying in the National Assembly. We think that the low-lying fruit out of those discussions is the IEBC Amendment Bill 2024 which William Ruto has promised to sign into law,” Kalonzo stated.
Kalonzo stated that signing the Bill into law should be done expeditiously today on July 7, a politically significant day popularly known as Sabasaba Day when Kenyans thronged the streets to clamour for multi-party democracy.
On the need for urgency, the Wiper Democratic Leader remarked that it was paramount that the country gets a new IEBC as soon as possible.
“This is not a thing that we think should be delayed for even one extra day,” he issued the midnight ultimatum.
On June 30, Ruto had promised the nation that Kenya would have a fully constituted electoral commission within 10 days.
The Bill had been presented to the President in mid-June but he is yet to sign it into law.
The lack of IEBC commissioners has crippled the Commission's operations and made it virtually impossible for the body to discharge most of its constitutional mandates including conducting by-elections and boundary reviews.
The Azimio Principal who was flanked by former cabinet secretaries Eugene Wamalwa and Peter Munya added that the opposition fully supported Gen Z protests.
He likened them to the Sababasaba demonstrations of July 7, 1990, which gave birth to multiparty democracy.
According to Kalonzo, while the 90s demos had forced the end of one-party rule, the 2024 protests had led to the retraction of the Finance Bill that had proposed punitive taxes.
