Category: Politics

{While the deal is awaiting final approval, an agreement has reportedly been struck in the DRC that would lead to President Kabila stepping down at the end of 2017. Opposition representatives have agreed to the deal.}

Politicians in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) agreed in principle to a deal that would see current President Joseph Kabila hand over power to a transitional government with fresh presidential elections scheduled for the end of 2017. Kabila refused to vacate his position this week after his mandate ended stating that the mechanisms for a proper election were not in place.

Part of the agreement is that Kabila cannot run for a third term and a prime minister will be named from the main bloc of opposition parties. It is reported that the main opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi will oversee the implementation of the deal. The deal was the result of meetings between the government and members of the opposition that were organized by the Catholic church.

“Kabila stays for one year,” Martin Fayulu, a member of the opposition, told Reuters. “He will not try to stand for a new term.”

However Jean Marc Kabund, the secretary general of Congo’s largest opposition party, the UDPS, told Reuters that the deal is not yet set.

“Today is the last day (of negotiations),” he said. “It’s make it or break it.”

Lumanu Mulenda, a negotiator for Kabila’s government told the AFP that “the president has made enough concessions, the deal will be signed tomorrow.”
Many attribute the involvement of the Catholic church for the progress toward an agreement.

“It remains to be seen whether the process is robust enough for the electoral processes to be worked out in time,” said Ayo Johnson, director of Viewpoint Africa.
“People are asking for real change, for a proper handover from military to civilian from civilian to civilian. They want continuity in governance,” he said.

{{More casualties reported}}

The UN’s Joint Human Rights Office DRC (UNJHRO) is reporting that at least 40 people have been killed in the capital Kinshasa, as well as in Lubumbashi, Boma and Matadi and another 460 arrested this week during protests against President Kabila.

“Such high casualty figures suggest a serious disregard of the need to exercise restraint in policing demonstrations,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a statement.

Protests erupted on Tuesday after the president’s mandate officially ended. Dozens of protesters have reportedly been killed in the DRC since Kabila announced his intention not to step down in September.

{Pressure is mounting from religious leaders on President Uhuru Kenyatta not to sign the election amendments Bill that were passed by Jubilee MPs on Thursday.
}

The changes that allow a manual back up in election management were effected during a stormy session in the National Assembly boycotted by Cord.

The religious are calling for a return to the negotiating table between Jubilee and the opposition.

The Evangelical Council of Kenya and the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims joined the Catholic Church bishops on Friday in asking President Kenyatta to “rise above politics” and refuse to assent to the Bill until after negotiations.

The laws will go to the Senate before President Kenyatta’s make-or-break signature.

They seek to allow the electoral commission to use a “complementary alternative” in case the electronic system fails in the August 8, 2017 General Election.

But Cord has said that was a recipe for chaos and election rigging. It has called on its supporters to go to the streets on January 4 to protest what they said was Jubilee’s assault on the will of the people.

On Friday, the Evangelical Council of Kenya said in a statment: “We are asking President Kenyatta to display his magnanimity, by not assenting to the acrimonious amendments, until there is a consensus on the same. This will be in line with the Christmas spirit, which is about peace, joy and good towards all.”

WAS DETRIMENTAL

And like the Catholic bishops before them, the evangelicals said the way the laws were passed in the House was detrimental to the negotiations that birthed the now disputed law.

There were claims of pepper spraying, injured MPs from fist-fights and a House that was cordoned off by heavily-armed police for the two days.

“This political grandstanding, altercation and standoff must be stopped. We call on the government and the opposition to come back to the negotiating table,” the churches said.

In their statement on Thursday evening after the special sitting the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission offered to lead the negotiations, again.

During the National Assembly’s special sitting, the live broadcast was cut off, a journalist arrested and others locked out of the press gallery.

The church had led the walk to bring truce to the two sides after five weeks of deadly and violent street protests when Cord demanded the removal of the Issack Hassan-led nine-member electoral commission.

It also led to the creation of the 14-member bi-partisan joint select committee that created the new laws, which President Kenyatta and Cord leader Raila Odinga agreed will not be changed.

“We urge you, Mr President, not to sign the amendments into laws, and that you give dialogue a chance,” the Bishops said.

‘OUR SUPPORT’

“We assure you of all our support in building a stable, cohesive, democratic and prosperous Kenyan society.”

Supkem Deputy Secretary General Hassan ole Naado on Thursday said that the amendments could lead to another round of violence, akin to the 2007/2008 post-election violence chaos that left 1,133 dead and over 650,000 displaced.

“The president should rise above partisan interests by rejecting those amendments. Laws that come into place through negotiated processes cannot be brought back by one side and changed the way it happened in Parliament,” Mr Naado said in Narok.

Kanu also said it will join the January demonstrations if no agreement is reached.

“We will not sit back and watch as the government reverses electoral reforms,” party Secretary General Nick Salat said in a text message to the Nation.

Meanwhile, Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi on Friday said that “the President ought to know no power is more potent than a determined people. The people of Kenya being masters of their own fate must rise up against an increasingly intolerant regime,” Mr Mudavadi said in a statement.

“The track record of this regime is to sign agreements it never intends to keep.

‘BE SWINDLED’

‘‘It doesn’t matter whether they are cheating the teacher or doctor. To Jubilee, everyone should be swindled. To them, the only advantage they seek is how to contravene the Constitution,” said Mr Mudavadi.

He condemned the way the laws were passed, also castigating House Majority Leader Aden Duale for reprimanding High Court Judge George Odunga.

“That the President has no respect for the Constitution is confirmed by the President ceding the moral high ground for which he was elected as the symbol of national unity to propagating chaos. It is now obvious that Uhuru is setting the ground for a rigged and violent election that will give him an excuse to retain power,” he said.

Jubilee and Cord brigades on Friday held on to their hardline stances, each saying that their positions were backed by reason and international practice.

Mr Raphael Tuju, the head of the Jubilee secretariat and his Cord counterpart Norman Magayu differ sharply in commentaries on the issue. They both give the same examples from African countries but with different intepretations.

{In the Democratic Republic of Congo, members of the presidential alliance and the country’s main opposition coalition met again Thursday to try to hammer out a deal on delayed elections. Mediators from the Catholic Church say the two sides need to reach an agreement before Christmas, but so far neither side is showing signs of compromise.}

The Archbishop of Kisangani, Monseigneur Marcel Utembi, took a firm line as he reopened the talks in Kinshasa.

Utembi said the church mediators are not inclined to look favorably on further undue postponements and delaying tactics. He expressed the church’s firm wish that a compromise be found before Christmas.

Utembi is the president of CENCO, the organization that represents the Congolese Catholic Church, which is mediating the dispute over delayed elections. The talks were suspended Saturday while a delegation of Congolese archbishops visited the pope to seek guidance on the crisis.

During the break, at midnight Monday, DRC President Joseph Kabila’s elected mandate expired. He intends to remain in office until polls can be held.

The leader of the Rassemblement, the country’s main opposition coalition, Etienne Tshisekedi, responded by declaring Kabila “illegitimate” and calling the population to “peaceful resistance.”

Security forces, heavily deployed since last week, put down sporadic demonstrations that started early Tuesday and continued into Wednesday in Kinshasa and other Congolese cities.

Human Rights Watch says security forces have killed 34 people and it is still verifying additional reports. The police have given a lower toll. A spokesman told reporters Wednesday that 21 civilians have been killed, most by stray bullets or while engaged in looting. The police said one of their officers was also killed.

But the Rassemblement has returned to the negotiating table.

The secretary general of Tshisekedi’s party, Jean-Marc Kabund, spoke to journalists as the talks resumed.

He says, “We have come to find a solution as to the illegitimacy and illegality of Mr. Kabila. We have come to negotiate the departure of Mr. Kabila from power. That is all the population needs to know.”

The Rassemblement boycotted talks earlier this year that provisionally set the presidential election for April 2018. The electoral commission says it needs time to prepare an updated voter roll.

Kabila has so far refused to agree to the Rassemblement’s demand he publicly commit to not seeking a third term, which is forbidden by the Constitution.

The coordinator of the youth activism group the Fourth Way, Jean-Marie Kalonji, does not see the point of further dialogue.

Kalonji told VOA that CENCO must explain to the people why the negotiations are continuing because the people of the DRC are turning the page and Kabila is no longer president. He says the dialogue does not make any sense and that is why the Congolese youth protested on December 19th without the opposition calling for it.

Tensions do not look to be abating any time soon. A police spokesman said that the enhanced security presence will remain in place until the end of the year.

President Uhuru Kenyatta would be re-elected if elections were held today, according to an opinion poll released on Wednesday.

The survey by Ipsos predicts that President Kenyatta would get 50 per cent of the votes, way ahead of Cord leader Raila Odinga, who trails him in second place at 22 per cent.

The poll is likely to generate controversy especially from the opposition as it shows that Mr Kenyatta would defeat the Cord leader even in their perceived strongholds of Western, Coast and Eastern.

The poll was conducted between December 17 and 19 and sampled 1,083 respondents. It has a margin of error of error of +/- 3.1 per cent with a 95 per cent confidence level. The margin of error is attributed to sampling.

According to the survey, Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka would finish third with a paltry two per cent of the total votes cast followed by Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi with one per cent. Sixteen per cent of the respondents were undecided on which presidential candidate they would vote for while another seven per cent refused to divulge their preferred candidate to the pollsters.

According to the survey, the President would triumph in the Coast region — perceived to be an Opposition zone — with 45 per cent of the support, ahead of Mr Odinga’s 24 per cent. The poll shows that Mr Musyoka would garner only get three per cent.

SOLID SUPPORT

In Eastern, the President would garner 47 per cent of the votes ahead of Mr Odinga (23 per cent), and Mr Musyoka (nine per cent). This, in spite of Mr Musyoka’s solid support especially in lower Eastern over the last three general elections.

The poll also shows that Mr Kenyatta would carry the day in Western, another opposition zone, with 34 per cent, followed by Mr Odinga with 22 per cent and Mr Mudavadi with seven per cent.

Mr Musyoka, the poll shows, would only manage one per cent of the votes in this region.

Speaking during the release of the poll results, Ipsos lead researcher Tom Wolf was at pains to explain the sudden upsurge in Mr Kenyatta’s fortunes and the opposition’s dwindling prospects. Mr Wolf suggested that the President would benefit immensely from his incumbency status which accords him vast resources to initiate development projects across the country.

“Do not underrate the power of incumbency because it is a very powerful tool,” he said. “Mr Kenyatta has also been travelling a lot across the country launching infrastructural projects and this could be bearing fruits”.

He attributed the opposition’s dwindling fortunes to the failure to name the candidate to take on the President in the 2017 election.

“Whereas everybody knows Mr Kenyatta will be the Jubilee presidential candidate, the opposition does not have a presidential candidate as we speak and this could be the reason why the results are the way they are,” he said.

{The stage has been set for a clash between Jubilee and Cord MPs in Parliament on Tuesday when they are expected to hold a special sitting to debate the laws and regulations that will guide the 2017 General Election.}

The two main coalitions in the National Assembly on Monday maintained hardline positions, with Jubilee vowing to push through amendments to the Elections (Amended) Act and elections regulations to be in line with “reality”. Cord, on the other hand, declared that its MPs would oppose any move to change either the law or the regulations, accusing Jubilee of harbouring a sinister motive.

The laws were agreed on by a team of parliamentarians from both coalitions as part of election reforms ahead of the General Election.

Both sides on Monday said they had mobilised their members for the debate in the National Assembly, amid fears that the session could be marred by disruptions. In March, Cord members used whistles and shouted down speakers when they disrupted President Uhuru Kenyatta’s State of the Nation address in the National Assembly.

During the second edition of the Luo Cultural Festival at Homa Bay High School on Monday, Mr Odinga told opposition MPs to remain vigilant in Parliament to block Jubilee’s moves.

‘ARE DOOMED’

“We want to tell them that their plans are doomed to fail. I have shared with Wanga (Homa Bay Woman Rep) and asked her to carry enough water to Parliament should they try to bring such changes,” Mr Odinga said in an apparent reference to the woman rep’s 2014 action when she splashed the Deputy Speaker, Ms Joyce Laboso, with water during a stormy session.

Mr Odinga reiterated that any attempts to change laws to tilt the 2017 election outcome will meet resistance.

Addressing youths at Kendu Bay showground, in a reference to rigging, Mr Odinga said: “We will not accept Jubilee’s new schemes. Their plan is to stop electronic voting, which is vital as it will ensure that no dead voters cast their votes.”

In Nairobi, Mr Johnson Sakaja, a nominated Jubilee MP, said the ruling coalition was prepared for “any theatrics” that could be used by their rivals to block debate on the amendments.

“If they try to come to the House with theatrics like blowing whistles, we know how to deal with them. On our side, we have agreed to conduct our affairs with integrity,” he said in a telephone interview.

National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale said Jubilee MPs would support the amendments. According to him, the changes had been agreed on by the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee (JLAC), including members from the Opposition. The committee is led by Ainabkoi MP Samuel Chepkong’a.

‘SUPPORT IT’

“The amendments belong to the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee. Once they have been presented, they belong to the House and all its members will support it,” he said.

At Capitol Hill Centre, however, Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang’ula led the Cord team in vowing to block any changes proposed by Jubilee. He questioned the motive of Jubilee MPs pushing to amend the laws they helped create.

“Cord will not sit and watch changes being made to the election laws in such a hurried manner,” said Mr Wetang’ula, who accused the Speakers of both Houses of working for the Executive.

He said the reasons Jubilee was giving on why it wants the law changed are vague, and wondered how the National Assembly could be recalled to handle a matter that is at the committee stage.

Mr Wetang’ula insisted that the electoral commission must be ready to embrace technology and the Opposition will not accept anything less.

“It is irrational, unrealistic and a scheme to rig the election by refusing to embrace technology,” said the Ford Kenya leader, who is also the Senate Minority Leader. “We have given them the law and money and therefore IEBC cannot tell us that unpurchased machines cannot work.”

‘SERIOUS CHALLENGE’

However, Mr Duale said the amendments were drafted after IEBC made a presentation showing the “serious challenges” it would face implementing the law if it was not changed.

“If a law poses serious challenges, and it has happened before with other laws, Parliament rises to the occasion,” said Mr Duale. According to him, there was need for a backup for the electronic system.

Responding to Cord’s vow not to allow the changes to go through, he said: “We are not going to hang ourselves when we can see clearly we are being taken to the hangman.”

Siaya Senator James Orengo said the IEBC was looking for excuses and challenged them to stick to the law as it is.

At the centre of the debate is the proposal by the Chepkong’a committee to amend the Elections Act and provide for a manual backup system for the voting, transmission and tallying of election results.

The new subsection 14b(1) reads: “Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 39 and 44, the (electoral) commission shall put in place a complementary mechanism for identification and transmission of election results that is simple, accurate, verifiable, secure, accountable and transparent to ensure that the Commission complies with Article 38 (2) and (3) of the Constitution.”

MANUAL SYSTEM

The proposed amendment goes ahead to provide that if technology fails, the manual system shall be used to identify voters and transmit results. In subsection 14b(2), it proposes: “The commission shall use the complementary mechanism referred to in sub-section (1) for identification and transmission of election results only where the technology initially deployed fails.”

Other areas of concern with the amendments is the increase of the number of voters in a polling station from 500 to 700, removal of education qualifications for aspirants and the deadline for compliance with the Campaign Financing Act.

In Turbo, Uasin Gishu, Cord leader Raila Odinga said that any Bill passed in the Parliament cannot be amended within six months.

“Parliament passed laws what we agreed, and we insist that no changes be made to laws until six months have elapsed. This period has not elapsed. What they want to do is against the law and we will not accept that. Kenyans are opposed to that,” Mr Odinga told journalists. With him at the time was the Amani National Congress (ANC) party leader Musalia Mudavadi, Kakamega governor Wycliffe Oparanya and Lugari MP Ayub Savula.

Besides the clause on electronic management and transmission of elections results, the MPs are set to debate the law on election financing and the requirement for MPs to have university degrees.

Mr Odinga said Cord will marshal legislators allied to opposition parties to shoot down any attempt to introduce amendments to the negotiated law.

“They want to use their tyranny of numbers,” he said.

He also denied claims that the Opposition was planning to rig polls as alleged by Jubilee legislators on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Jubilee government has been asked to ensure a digital election in 2017.

The Machakos County woman rep, Dr Susan Musyoka (Wiper), said there should be no manual backup, which is prone to manipulation, as happened in previous General Elections.

Addressing the Press in Machakos, Dr Musyoka said Jubilee came to power while branding itself as ‘a digital government’ and it was up to them to live up to the billing.

“We would like to have a digital election in 2017. We will not accept vote-rigging,” she said.