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Tanzanian judge in Kenya poll probe team
2008-03-15 09:30:26
By Kasembeli Albert, Nairobi
A Tanzanian judge is a member of a commission of inquiry that will probe all aspects of last year`s general election in Kenya.
The judge, Lady Justice Imani Daudi Aboud, is a member of the commission appointed by President Mwai Kibaki.
The six-member commission - expected to dig up all aspects of the election that ended in widespread bloody violence - will begin its work next week.
According to a Kenya State House communique, ``President Mwai Kibaki has appointed a commission of Inquiry to inquire into all aspects of the general election held on December 27, 2007, with particular emphasis on the presidential election.``
The commission will be headed by respected South African Judge Johann Kriegler, who once headed South Africa’s post-apartheid Independent Electoral Commission after the 1994 election.
Also on the team is Horacio Boneo from Argentina, who has been involved in electoral assistance and observation in more than 60 countries. Kenyans named in the team are Prof Marangu M’Marete (PNU), and Francis Angila Aywa and Catherine Muyeka Mumma, both of ODM.
A second PNU representative, Ms Wanza Kioko, declined appointment to the team. Malawian Lady Justice Annastasia Msosa, who had been proposed, was not appointed.
Lady Justice Aboud is the third senior Tanzanian involved in resolving the Kenya`s post election crisis.
Retired President Benjamin Mkapa is among the eminent persons who brokered Kenya`s political stalemate, together with former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and Graca Machel.
President Kikwete travelled to Nairobi to help broker a peace deal between Raila Odinga and Kibaki as the negotiations were on a verge of collapse.
The commission will conduct its affairs in public. The Electoral Commission of Kenya members will be questioned at a public inquiry over their role in the disputed presidential election.
ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu and the 21 commissioners will be summoned to appear before the committee set up to investigate the December 27 election under the peace deal brokered by former UN chief Kofi Annan.
Kenyans will get a chance to question Kivuitu and his team on the handling of the presidential election, whose disputed results triggered widespread violence in which over 1,000 people were killed and more than 350,000 others displaced.
The decision to hold a public inquiry was made on Thursday by the mediators during a meeting held at the Serena Hotel.
Mbooni MP Mutula Kilonzo, who is among those representing the Government in the mediation talks, said the ECK commissioners would appear at the inquiry personally or through their lawyers.
``It will be a 100 per cent public hearing. We will not accept anything else,`` he said.
The decision comes amid fresh calls for the commissioners to resign to pave the way for investigations.
The mediators had agreed, as part of the Annan settlement, to set up an independent review committee to inquire into
the electoral system and the irregularities that occurred during last year`s elections.
ECK declared Kibaki winner of the election - a verdict that ODM`s Raila Odinga contested.
The Kriegler commission will also be required to make recommendations on how the country`s electoral system can be strengthened to avoid a repeat of the poll crisis.
Its mandate includes finding out what went wrong with the elections.
On Thursday, Kilonzo said it was only a public hearing that would heal the country and make election anomalies a thing of the past.
The commissioners, he said, would only say the truth about what happened if questioned under oath.
Forensic investigation would also be carried out to determine the root cause of the election crisis.
Investigators are expected to start work after the gazetting of their terms of reference in Friday’s Kenya Gazette.
Thereafter, Justice Kriegler and his team will establish a centre of work, hire legal counsel, if needed, hold meetings to define the laws they will operate under. Kriegler is expected in the country next Wednesday.
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