Tag: GreatLakesNews

{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.

{Security forces patrolled the streets of Kinshasa on Sunday after the suspension of last-ditch talks seeking a peaceful end to a crisis sparked by the end of Congolese President Joseph Kabila’s mandate.}

Negotiations to agree on a way forward after December 20, when Kabila’s second term finishes, were halted on Saturday with no significant progress made.

Fears of fresh political violence in mineral-rich but unstable Democratic Republic of Congo were running high, with no elections planned and Kabila showing no inclination to step down.

{{VERY WORRIED}}

Talks are due to resume on Wednesday when Catholic bishops acting as mediators return from a long-planned trip to Rome — a day after Kabila’s term ends.

AFP reporters saw security forces posted in large numbers in opposition strongholds and other flashpoints around Kinshasa, the teeming capital of 10 million.

“We’re waiting to see what happens. The politicians are okay, it’s us, the little people, who suffer,” a supervisor at a cleaning company told AFP.

“Things are not normal. We are very worried,” said 25-year-old Atine Butela, a hair salon owner.

{{SENSE OF FEAR}}

At the dilapidated Tata-Raphael stadium, which hosted the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” between Mohammed Ali and George Foreman, the usual crowd of runners, football players and boxers, was noticeably small.

“Normally, there are 700 or 800 people. Today there must be fewer than 250,” visitor Michel Kabamba said outside.

“Soldiers are criss-crossing the city, which creates a sense of fear… Some people have already made plans, foreigners have left …”

In the run-up to Christmas, however, churches were as busy as ever in a country where Christians make up 80 percent of the population.

{{KABILA ADAMANT}}

Kabila, constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, has indicated he wants to stay in power until a successor is chosen, but some opposition figures want him to hand over to a transitional leadership while awaiting the vote.

The 45-year-old has been in power since his father Laurent Kabila was assassinated in 2001. He was elected in 2006, and again in 2011, in polls decried as rigged by the opposition.

Last week’s talks sponsored by the Congolese bishops’ conference (CENCO) brought together the ruling party and fringe opposition groups, allied against a mainstream opposition coalition led by the 84-year-old Etienne Tshisekedi.

But despite three days of mediation they broke up on Saturday, with no progress made on the main issues that divide the two sides.

{{THREATS}}

Kabila’s opponents accuse him of delaying the vote in the hope of tweaking the Constitution to extend his family’s hold over a nation that is almost the size of western Europe.

Tshisekedi’s opposition grouping had threatened to bring people into the streets from Monday if the talks failed.

Leaflets urging people to retake Kinshasa “street by street, district by district until we retake the whole of the DRC”, have begun to circulate in the capital.

{{TENSION HIGH}}

But so far the opposition has not given an order to mobilise, while the international community is urging calm on all sides.

Tensions were also running high elsewhere in the country, with security heightened notably in the towns of Lubumbashi, Goma and Kisangani.

Church mediators have warned that failing to find a political settlement will lead to “an uncontrollable situation”, a stark prospect in a country that barely two decades ago plunged into the deadliest conflict in modern African history.

Congo’s two wars in the late 1990s and early 2000s dragged in at least six African armies and left more than three million dead.

{{70 MILLION}}

The European Union urged the two sides to reach a deal for “transparent, credible” elections to be held as soon as possible.

The UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, also appealed for calm, saying the political players had a “historic responsibility to reach a negotiated settlement on holding elections.”

In Rome, Pope Francis urged worshippers to “pray that the dialogue in the Democratic Republic of Congo proceeds calmly, to avoid any violence and for the good of the whole country.”

A democratic handover would break ground for Congo’s 70 million people who since independence from Belgium in 1960 have never witnessed political change at the ballot box.

{The suspect is a resident of Hakabungo cell in Mukaranje ward, Katuna town council.}

Police in Kabale is holding a twenty-two-year-old man for allegedly injecting his two nephews with blood infected with HIV/AIDs.

The suspect is a resident of Hakabungo cell in Mukaranje ward, Katuna town council. The incident occurred on December 12 this year.

Mr Nelson Nshangabashaija, the Local Council Three chairperson for Katuna town council said the suspect used a syringe to get infected blood from his body before he injected it to the victims who are all aged four.

According to Mr Nshangabashaija, the suspect has been staying with his grandmother and is believed to have acquired the virus from his late parents.

He said that this is the first incident of this nature to happen in the area.

Mr Elly Maate, the police spokesperson for Kigezi region told this reporter that the suspect was arrested on Saturday from his hideout in Katuna town council. He is being detained at Kabale central Police station.

In January 2014, Rosemary Namubiru, a 65-year-old nurse at Victoria Medical Centre in Kampala was arrested for allegedly injecting a two-year-old baby with blood infected with HIV/AIDs. She was later released by Court in November 2014.

{A leading member of an opposition party coalition known as the “Rassemblement” is urging the Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila to reach an agreement with the group and step down to allow a smooth transition. President Kabila’s official second and final term expires on December 19.}

Freddy Mbuyamu Matungulu, leader of the opposition Congo Nabiso Party, (our Congo, in the local Lingala dialect) says opposition leaders forming the Rassemblement are meeting in the capital, Kinshasa, to decide the country’s transition process and steps forward after Kabila steps down on Monday.

He also says a court ruling that paves the way for President Kabila to remain in office after his term expires lacks credibility and support from the public.

“We are discussing the arrangement that should be put in place so that we are able to manage the country peacefully, until we get to the time when elections could be held,” said Matungulu.

“As you can see, the president’s political alliance is talking with us and I think it’s the recognition of the fact that that ruling doesn’t have sufficient force to allow him to continue to stay in power when his term comes to an end on December 19.”

His remarks came after the United States said it was deeply concerned about the potential for unrest and violence on or around December 19, when Kabila second and final term in office was to end with the inauguration of a democratically elected successor.

“We urge both the government and opposition to cooperate fully and in good faith with the DRC’s Conference of Catholic Bishops (CENCO) to finalize an inclusive agreement as soon as possible on the holding of elections, parameters for an interim government, and a peaceful transfer of power. We further urge the DRC government and opposition parties to refrain from any actions or statements that could incite violence or unlawful activity in the coming days and weeks,” read a statement by Mark Toner, Deputy spokesman at the U.S. State Department.

“At this critical moment in Congo’s history, we call on opposition party leaders, civil society representatives, ruling coalition officials, and leaders of the DRC government to renew their commitment to nonviolence and redouble their efforts to reach an inclusive agreement acceptable to all sides.”

Matungulu welcomed Washington’s call. He adds that the opposition coalition is cooperating with the Conference of Catholic Bishops. This, he says, is because the conference has the most appropriate framework which he says could lead to an agreement with the government to move the country forward.

Matungulu also expressed concern about reports of a government directive seeking to force telecommunication companies operating in the country to block access to social media sites on December 18. Civil society and international human rights groups sharply condemned the move.

“This is one of the actions that the government is undertaking that is bringing our country backwards by 20 years when it comes to progress on the road to more political openness and democracy. And I think it is important that we find an agreement that will kind of reset the democracy clock in our country so that we can all live peacefully and the government then wouldn’t have to be taking the kind of restrictive measures that can unfortunately, only hurt the future prospects of this country,” said Matungulu.

“The president should understand that this country needs to move forward and this is the effort that we all are making, around the bishops of this country to try to find a peaceful settlement to this huge crisis that the country is going through.”

“We are hoping that we would be able to reach that agreement with the government so that the country can move very quickly to the elections and therefore the swearing in of the new president. We hope that this can be done in 2017 and I think if we are able to do that we would have solved most of the political problems we have in this country,” he added.