IEBC chief Chebukati unveils plan to review electoral boundaries
What you need to know:
The Constitution mandates the IEBC to review the boundaries at intervals of not less than eight years, and not more than 12 years. The last review ended on March 7, 2012.
Such reviews must be completed at least one year before a General Election for the new boundaries to take effect. In the current scenario, the review must be completed by July 2021
The electoral agency has announced that it will start reviewing constituency boundaries next month, kicking off what could be its biggest test yet ahead of the 2022 General Election.
Its first biggest headache will be to decide on the fate of the 26 constituencies that did not meet the population criteria when the last review was done in 2012.
The 26 constituencies include former President Mwai Kibaki’s Othaya, Ndaragwa, Tetu, Mukurweini, Kangema and Mathioya in Mount Kenya region. In the Coast region, those that did not meet the quota in the last review are Lamu East, Lamu West, Mvita, Mwatate, Wundanyi, Voi, Bura and Galole.
Others are Samburu East, Marakwet East, Keiyo North, Mogotio in the Rift Valley and Vihiga and Budalang’i in Western as well as Laisamis, Isiolo South, Kilome, North Horr, Saku, and Mbeere North in eastern.
Even though they had not met the population criteria, the Andrew Ligale commission of 2012 allowed the existence of the constituencies on the understanding that they would be reviewed in the subsequent delimitation of boundaries.
And while the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has no power to reduce the constituencies from the set 290, the agency has the power to merge and propose newer constituencies.
The commission, however, has a leeway in law to change the number of wards from the 1,450 currently.
This will affect the political matrix not only for the MPs but also for counties.
IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati, in a statement, made no mention of the fate of the constituencies.
“The commission is to commence a review of constituencies and wards boundaries as from March 2020. The review will be based on the population quota derived from the census.
“However, the Constitution provides for other parameters to be applied such as geographical features and urban centres, community of interest, historical, economic, and cultural ties,” Mr Chebukati said in the statement.
According to the law, the population of a constituency must be higher or lower than its quota by 40 per cent for cities and sparsely populated areas, and 30 per cent for other areas. The quota is arrived at by dividing the total population by the 290 constituencies. After the 2019 census, this calculation will be based on its figure of 47.6 million Kenyans.
The Constitution demands that boundaries of every constituency or ward be informed by population quota, a figure obtained by dividing the number of Kenyans by constituencies.
Using this formula, the population quota in the planned review will be 164,014 – the critical figure the IEBC will use to determine the fate of constituencies using the set criteria.
This means constituencies in urban cities and sparsely populated areas will have a maximum of 229,621, and a minimum of 98,409. All other areas will have a population of a maximum of 213,219 and a minimum of 114,819.
However, the provision that “boundaries of each constituency shall be such that the number of inhabitants is, as nearly as possible, equal to the population quota” may provide an avenue for the IEBC to make the same concessions the Ligale team made.
The Constitution mandates the IEBC to review the boundaries at intervals of not less than eight years, and not more than 12 years. The last review ended on March 7, 2012.
“Such reviews must be completed at least one year before a General Election for the new boundaries to take effect. In the current scenario, the review must be completed by July 2021,” said Mr Chebukati.
According to lawyer Mohamed Alawi, IEBC’s attempt to do the review before the 2022 polls was a “political and litigation minefield”.
“Conducting the electoral boundary review after 2022 will afford the country a much-needed transition from the elections and allow for a less hurried and more accurate census. In addition, the relevant legislation is ambiguous, besides administrative gaps noted during the first review,” Mr Alawi wrote in an opinion in the Sunday Nation.
In the last boundary review in 2012, and following the application of the new population quota, the Rift Valley got an additional 27 constituencies, making them 76, while Nairobi and western got an additional nine each, taking their tallies to 33 and 17, respectively.
Nyanza’s constituencies rose to 42 with the Ligale commission proposing the creation of 10 new ones, while Coast and central got five each, bringing their numbers to 26 and 34, respectively.
The former eastern province, on the other hand, got eight additional constituencies to reach a total of 44.
