Friday, February 4, 2022 – The Bill by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Government that seeks to ban IEBC from streaming the August 9 General Election results live on TV and other social media platforms has been met with serious resistance from both friends and foes.
This is after former Prime Minister Raila Odinga concurred with Deputy President William Ruto that indeed the Bill is retrogressive.
Ruto and his allies in Kenya Kwanza have termed the Bill as not only retrogressive but a scheme to install a puppet President in the name of Raila Odinga.
“The never-ending onslaught through election law amendments is a choreographed attempt to install a puppet on the Kenyan electorate and sabotage our freedom of choice and hard-earned democracy.
“The plan is evil and must fail. The people have resoundingly said HATUPANGWINGWI,” said the Deputy President on his social platforms.
Now, Raila and his allies have agreed not back the controversial Elections (Amendment) Bill, 2022.
Led by National Assembly Minority Whip and ODM stalwart, Junet Mohamed, Raila’s brigade castigated the move terming the manual system of vote tallying as one prone to errors and that by going to that direction, the country would be reneging on technological advancements already made.
Junet, who is a proponent of the Azimio La Umoja – a coalition between Jubilee and ODM, made the statement even as National Assembly Leader of Majority and Kipipiri MP, Amos Kimunya, made it clear that the amendments originated from President Uhuru Kenyatta’s ruling party.
The Bill seeks to, among other things, bar media houses and other online portals from streaming live the 2022 provisional elections results. It also seeks to revert to manual tallying of electoral results.
Other than stopping live streaming of the provisional results, the Bill also seeks to quash a requirement necessitating the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) from availing polling station results on an online portal.