The electoral commission chairman Wafula Chebukati has revealed that the agency is gearing itself up for another delicate and highly polarising exercise of boundaries delimitation.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chair noted that the exercise will be difficult following strained relations with the Opposition and competing interests of individual politicians and political parties.
In a memo to Parliament’s Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee (CIOC), Chebukati noted that the exercise is political in nature since it defines the geographical areas for rulers and their subjects.
He further noted that the exercise will be hard due to minimal access and distribution of economic benefits and in some areas, it defines identities of a people owing to their historical attachments to certain geographical features of significance.
[caption caption="IEBC Chair Wafula Chebukati addressing journalists"]
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“Therefore, boundaries, whether administrative or electoral, have an effect on the incentives of those affected," he stated.
"This explains why boundary delimitation remains one of the most sensitive processes in the building of any democratic state,” the IEBC boss added.
IEBC sought Sh8 billion to conduct a second review of constituency and ward boundaries amid heightened political tension between the Jubilee Party and NASA whose members are pushing for “electoral justice”.
NASA co-principal, Musalia Mudavadi, argued that the planned exercise is distorted and will favour Jubilee strongholds.
The Amani National Congress (ANC) leader further alleged that IEBC was doing its bidding for its “Jubilee friends” by planning to add constituencies in the Jubilee strongholds and deny NASA in its strongholds.
[caption caption="NASA Co-principals Musalia Mudavadi"]
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“We are currently engrossed in lobbying for electoral justice and cannot trust IEBC with another undertaking. We have not even resolved the first issue and we will not submit ourselves for another process by IEBC,” Mudavadi stated.
