The proposals by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party could prevent the Supreme Court from annulling future election results because of flaws with the electronic transmission of results, as the court did last month.
“We cannot be party to a meeting that is changing the rules of the game midstream,” said opposition senator James Orengo, as quoted in The Nation newspaper.
“They have reached a level where they feel that they can do anything, and change anything, including the constitution through the back door,” Orengo said after leading the walk-out from yesterday’s meeting with Jubilee and the IIEBC.
The proposals were being debated yesterday during a special sitting of the Jubilee-dominated parliament.
Kenya’s Supreme Court nullified the result of the August 8 presidential vote after opposition leader Raila Odinga lodged a complaint, claiming that the computers of the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) were hacked to generate a victory for Kenyatta.
Kenyatta has called the decision to throw out the results a “judicial coup”.
New elections are due to be held October 26, but the opposition has threatened a boycott if certain IEBC officials are not replaced.
They also want the company responsible for the electronic voting system replaced.
The two new bills proposed by Kenyatta’s party stipulate that “when there is a discrepancy between the electronically and manually transmitted results, the manually transmitted results shall prevail”.
“Any failure to transmit or publish the election results in an electronic format will not invalidate the results,” the amendments say.
In August’s vote, held under the current law, manual tallying served as the back-up to the electronic system put in place after Kenya’s violently disputed 2007 election in which over 1,100 people died.
The Supreme Court had also criticised the lack of prescribed security features on tally forms in its ruling ordering the annulment.
Church groups joined the opposition in criticising the proposed amendments.
“This is an unacceptable path since it will lead to mutilation of the constitution and weakening of institutions,” said Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit, head of the Anglican church in Kenya.
After the collapse of yesterday’s talks, IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati questioned the necessity of changing the legislation.
“We don’t need any other law to move forward with elections,” he said.
Addressing a press conference yesterday, Odinga called for mass protests next week.
“We have no other option than to take the battle to the people,” he said, calling the proposed changes to the election laws were an attack on democracy and the constitution that must be resisted.
“I call on this generation to resist, to rise up and resist. We are calling our people to action,” he told a press conference in Nairobi. “Enough is enough. On Monday we will begin the demonstrations.”
Odinga reiterated a call for biweekly protests, every Monday and Friday.
“Kenya is bigger than Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto,” he said, referring to the country’s deputy president.
On Monday, a few hundred opposition supporters protesting outside the IEBC headquarters in central Nairobi were dispersed by police using tear gas and batons.