Amendments to the IEBC act[0] are possible, see for example[1]. A constitutional amendment is not needed as the constitution does not go into details on who can be a commissioner[2]. The IEBC act Revision 2012[3], specifies: 1. Selection Panel (1) Within fourteen days of the commencement of this Act, the President shall, in consultation with the Prime Minister and with the approval of the National Assembly, appoint a Selection Panel comprising of— (a) two persons, being one man and one woman, nominated by the President; (b) two persons, being one man and one woman, nominated by the Prime Minister; (c) one person nominated by the Judicial Service Commission; (d) one person nominated by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Advisory Board; and (e) one person nominated by the Association of Professional Societies of East Africa The current act Revision 2020[1] specifies: 1. Selection Panel (1) At least six months before the lapse of the term of the chairperson or member of the Commission or within fourteen days of the declaration of a vacancy in the office of the chairperson or member of the Commission under the Constitution or this Act, the President shall appoint a selection panel consisting of seven persons for the purposes of appointment of the chairperson or member of the Commission. (2) The selection panel shall consist of — (a) two men and two women nominated by the Parliamentary Service Commission; (b) one person nominated by the Law Society of Kenya; and (c) two persons nominated by the Inter-religious Council of Kenya. It seems that professional bodies have been preferred. At present the ICT sector does not have a strong representative body, for example comparable to the ACM in the USA or the Institute of Electronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Essentially, a body capable of joining the International Federation for Information Processing[3] is needed. The Kenya National Academy of Sciences[4] may also play a good role, though at present the website appears to be down. The IEBC act does not include commissioners with a technical background, who might be able to understand engineering of KIEMS kits, the details of biometric identification and results transmission. In addition to a computer science/IT professional, it would be good for an Engineering body such as The Institution of Engineers of Kenya[5] to also make a nomination. Delimitation of boundaries is an important part of the requirements of the IEBC, technical expertise in this area is also welcome to prevent gerrymandering. 0) https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/8Z5fmROhVD.pdf 1) http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/2020/TheIndependentElecto... 2) http://www.kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/IndependentElectorala... 3) http://www.kenyalaw.org:8181/exist/kenyalex/actview.xql?actid=Const2010#KE/C... 4) http://www.ifip.org/ 5) https://www.knascience.or.ke/ 6) https://iekenya.org On 9/1/22 15:42, Shitemi Khamadi via KICTANet wrote:
Hi David
Interesting question. I was pondering the same early this week and my answer is yes. The issue would be the process of getting there and I think we have a number.
The best would be if it's anchored in the constitution. Meaning that should there be any process to amend the IEBC section, then the sector should consider adding their voice to it. The second is to Parliament and the select committee that oversees this process. A memo to them, quite early in their process should suffice. The same can also be sent to the President. The last is to encourage colleagues to put their names out there when the time comes.
A representative process closer to the IPPG one could also work, if such an opportunity arises or legal revisions lend themselves to it.
Thank you
On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 3:23 PM David Indeje via KICTANet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke <mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>> wrote:
image.png Dear Listers,
In our latest series of blogs about the 2022 Kenya Election as authored by Mr John Walubengo, we are posing a question:
"IEBC Commission: Should We Reserve a Slot for an ICT Professional?
Mr Walubengo notes that "In all the past three presidential petitions (2013, 2017a, and 2017b), ICT seems to have been central to the Supreme Court’s final decision. However, the way ICT matters were prosecuted, one could almost say the ICT was on trial."
Read the rest of the article here: https://tinyurl.com/3sh2h4vt <https://tinyurl.com/3sh2h4vt>
-- *Kind Regards,*
**
*David Indeje*
*KICTANet Communications *_____________________________________
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KICTANet is a multi-stakeholder Think Tank for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. KICTANet is a catalyst for reform in the Information and Communication Technology sector. Its work is guided by four pillars of Policy Advocacy, Capacity Building, Research, and Stakeholder Engagement.
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