Azimio la Umoja leaders Raila Odinga has renewed his calls to have the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission scrapped off with the country adapting a new electoral system.
The opposition chief now wants the country to adopt a decentralized county-based elections management system and do away with the centralized national election system.
Should the proposal sail through, Odinga hopes that the country will adopt an election system that bears some resemblance to the US electoral system.
“There is always the question of centralisation of election management. Do we need one electoral body to manage our elections or should elections management be devolved to the state regions or counties as in the case of the United States? Should parties be allowed to second their members to the election management bodies? My answer to these two questions is yes,” Odinga stated.
Technology used in elections also formed part of the proposals made by Odinga at the 14th edition of the Leadership Annual Conference and Awards in Abuja, Nigeria, on Tuesday.
“There is a need to rethink the use of technology. Either we adopt reliable election technology, including voting machines that generate a voter-verifiable audit trail, so voters can confirm that their choices are being recorded accurately, or we go fully manual,” explained the Azimio la Umoja leader.
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According to the former Prime Minister, addressing the concerns raised in the August 2022 elections will be key in restoring confidence in the country’s elections and its outcomes.
“Kenyans may lose all faith and decide to boycott future elections because they believe that their votes do not matter. Kenya has become a laboratory for bad election practices and others borrow in the continent,” he added.
Odinga has repeatedly made it clear that he does not recognize President William Ruto’s presidency, claiming that the election was rigged in Ruto’s favour.
Azimio coalition maintains that its candidate, Raila Odinga won the contest with 8,170,355 votes, beating Ruto, who received 5,919,973 votes.
Citing a dossier by an anonymous whistleblower, Azimio leaders maintained that they do not recognize William Ruto as the president, noting that what the IEBC did amounted to electoral fraud which must end.