Let Kenya adopt electoral college system of voting – Omtatah

Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah is now vouching for constitutional change to enable Kenya adopt the electoral college system of voting in presidential elections akin to the US.

In a statement via Twitter on Monday, the activist said he strongly supports calls for self determination as declared by the Azimio la Umoja coalition but not through secession. 

The outspoken rights activist cum politician said he believes Kenya's Constitution has a design flaw such that whereas all organs of governance were devolved, the presidency was not. 

"Hence, for me, the solution lies in amending Article 138 of the Constitution to devolve the presidency by removing the provision inadvertently created in law for the ethnic mobilisation of the national electorate at presidential elections.

"There is the urgent need to fully devolve the presidency to the 47 counties, the way the American founding fathers devolved their presidency to all the states that make up the United States of America," Omtatah said.

The lawmaker avers that tribes only become significant when tallied nationally and as such, this is the only way the stranglehold on national politics by the big five tribes will be broken.

He argued that currently, the big five tribes (Luhya, Kamba and Luo on one hand and the Kalenjin and Kikuyu on the other) dominate national politics in Kenya because of their sizeable populations which he says will be cut down to size given that significant members of the tribes are minorities in other counties.

"Each county would be assigned the number of electoral points equivalent to the number of constituencies it has plus one extra point underscoring that all counties are equal. We have 290 constituencies +47 counties totaling 337 electoral points," the senator said.

While putting the concept in perspective, Omtatah said one would be required to win the popular vote in the number of counties required to garner at least 169 electoral points, being more than half or 50% + 1 of the points, to be elected president.

"When tallied at the county level, even Lamu County with only two constituencies would have three vital electoral points which, though not enough to produce a president, can prevent one from being a president. Hence, Lamu will not be insignificant in the scheme of things, and those seeking the presidency will not flaunt the national sizes of their tribes at Lamu," Omtatah said. 

He said with the adoption of the electoral college system of voting, tribal regional politics will pave way for issue-based national politics and the politically marginalised tribes such as the El Molo will have realistic opportunity to be elected the president of Kenya.