Kenyan voter petitions IEBC to change law to allow presidency seat to rotate across the tribes
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has received a letter from a voter asking them to gather one million signatures to amend the Constitution to permit a rotating president.
The architect Nyongesa Makhanu favors electing the next president from a different community than the one that produced the outgoing president and his or her predecessor.
According to Mr. Makhanu’s plea to the commission headed by Wafula Chebukati, the limitation should not apply to the president who is in office at the time the law is passed.
In the package of constitutional modifications, he suggests giving direct nominations to the National Assembly and Senate for the presidential runner-up and their running partner, who finished second and third, respectively.
If this plan had been passed into law, Raila Odinga, the head of Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya, would now be seated in the National Assembly, and Martha Karua, his running mate, would be a senator.
Additionally, the petitioner is requesting that the General Election be held in the third week of December instead of on the first Tuesday in August. Makhanu contends that there is a need to align the set election schedule with the calendars for business, education, and the national budget.
“That holding presidential election on the Second Tuesday of August affects national economic activities negatively, particularly the tourism sector because it clashes with the season for the wildebeest migration in the Serengeti and Masai Mara ecosystem,” he says.
Makhanu says holding the elections on the second Tuesday of August affects the outgoing government’s annual budget, thus triggering prolonged budgetary constraints, which delay implementation of incoming government’s manifesto.
“That holding presidential elections and General Election after Jamhuri Day and before Christmas will be more in synchrony with the national economic, financial, and academic calendars,” he says in the letter.
Regarding the rotating presidency, Makhanu claims that voter disinterest is a result of the predominance of tribalism in Kenyan elections.
