Jubilee Party plans to strip CJ David Maraga president swearing-in role
Jubilee has instituted new and rigorous plans to silence CJ Maraga
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In a new proposed raft of measures, the Jubilee MPs agreed to include the clause to take powers of swearing in the President from the two heads of the Judiciary and confer it to “any judge of the Supreme Court”.
If the proposed law amendments on the constitution go through a parliamentary proceeding, it will hence mean that any Judge at the Supreme Court will be able to swear in the new president in the forthcoming elections.
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This new turn comes in even as the parliament, through its numbers on the Jubilee side, strives to replace the controversial electronic vote tally transmission process with a manual system.
It therefore beckons that Section 141(1) of the Constitution be amended. The Section currently 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.”
The annulled presidential August 8 elections, according to the Supreme Court ruling, was faulted on failure by the IEBC to do due diligence in transmission.
The Jubilee MPs want the complementary tally transmission process (manual) strengthened such that in a situation where the electronic result transmission fails, the process is done manually.
Since the annulment of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s win early this month, Uhuru Kenyatta has since maintained that the ballots would instead form a basic component for the numbers of votes cast in the August 8 General Election.
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Manual backup
The resolution to introduce manual back-up was reached after a meeting with Uhuru and Ruto with Jubilee elected leaders at State House, Nairobi on Tuesday.
President Uhuru requested the elected leaders to remember they were his campaign team on the ground and they have a role to play in his win or loss of the repeat election on October 26.
Ruto, who briefed the media after the meeting, said the party wants to engage agents in all polling stations and to ensure its leaders are well-acquainted with election rules so that those intent on creating mischief do not succeed.
“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.
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During the meeting, it was resolved that the law be amended to have the final results pronounced at the constituency level and captured in Form 34A be the final for the presidential election and be transferred manually to the tallying centre in case of technology failure.
If amended, the new law would give prominence to the manual tallying of votes at the constituency level which will be captured in Form 34A by the returning officer and be transferred manually to the national tallying centre.
Meanwhile, Wafula Chebukati led IEBC has held consultative meeting with both Jubilee and Nasa at the Bomas of Kenya to deliberate on key issues the commission is grappling with. Nasa and Jubilee made various demands, setting a tough ride for the IEBC ahead of October 26 repeat polls.
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