A group of MPs with the Executive’s support are planning to postpone next year’s general election, a move that is guaranteed to cause political commotion.
MPs led by Ndaragua MP Jeremiah Kioni are drafting a petition to the High Court to postpone the election date so that the IEBC may complete border delimitation.
The MPs claim that their action is intended to avoid a constitutional catastrophe by holding an election with illegitimate electoral units.
Kioni is the head of the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee of the National Assembly.
According to Paul Aol, a lawyer and constitutional expert, “Constituencies cannot be used to postpone an election.
“The rationale for this is that constituency lines are intended to be revised every eight to twelve years. This implies that if a general election is on the horizon and it falls within that time limit, no law has been broken.
“If we went 12 years without a review, for example, you might argue that the election was illegal. However, the most recent review was completed in 2012, which means that all of the constituencies are still valid from 2012 through 2024.”
Concerns that almost 200 seats do not fulfill the Constitution’s population barrier are at the heart of the election postponement drive.
Currently, each seat has a population quota of 163,000 voters.
To avoid a potential constitutional crisis, Kioni said that they will petition the courts to compel the IEBC to perform the border review before the August 9, 2022, referendum.
Without the review, the MP claimed, the 26 seats that were particularly safeguarded in 2012 but did not achieve the criteria will be abolished.
In 2012, the population quota was lifted for the 26 seats.
“This is a severe enough issue to warrant a debate on whether elections should be held on the scheduled date of August 9, 2022, or later,” Kioni added.
“What is the point of going into an election with the constituencies as they are now?” To me, it’s a situation that qualifies as a national emergency,” the legislator explained.
There has been conjecture that the Executive wanted next year’s election postponed to give the Building Bridges Initiative changes and referendum more time.
The BBI procedure has been halted by the High Court, which declared it unlawful. Even if the present appeal is successful, there is hardly enough time before the next elections to stage a referendum.