A political deal between Kenya’s ruling Jubilee Alliance and the opposition coalition Cord to resolve the stalemate over the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) could be in the offing.

A day after Cord suspended the weekly demonstrations aimed at forcing IEBC commissioners to resign and opted for dialogue, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s The National Alliance (TNA) party said the ruling coalition Jubilee will only dialogue with the opposition under a parliamentary forum.

Jubilee was heeding calls by several groups for a political solution to Cord’s concerns which have also been supported by other stakeholders.

TNA chairman Johnson Sakaja speaking for Jubilee, told The EastAfrican: “We are ready to engage the opposition and other stakeholders. We will probably consider a joint committee of the two houses of parliament and incorporate other stakeholders like Judiciary to listen to the grievances from Cord and proposal for electoral reforms before agreeing on the way forward.”

President Kenyatta has shown willingness of his administration to engage the opposition in a forum that is protected by law, to avoid legal battles afterwards. “I have already prepared my own personal position which I want to present to them, like everybody else. I have no problem,” said the president.

“Let the process be televised. Let it be put out there. Let people hear what does the church think, what does the president think, what does the government in waiting think, what does everyone think and at the end of all that we get something that ensures we have an election cycle that is not violent, a cycle that is peaceful and a cycle whose results will be transparent and acceptable and will allow the stability we all seek to continue,” he said at a meeting with Kenya Private Sector Alliance.

The government’s proposal is reminiscent of a political deal in 1997 when the then ruling party Kanu yielded to pressure from the opposition to reconstitute the electoral commission under the Inter-Parties Parliamentary Group (IPPG).

Under the IPPG deal, the 22 commissioners of the electoral body, among them the chairman and the vice-chairman, were nominated by political parties with at least five members in parliament. The slots were allocated to the political parties proportionate to their number of MPs. However, the commission was also disbanded through a political deal in 2008 following the disputed presidential election results after the electoral commission was accused of abetting widespread irregularities.

Cord, which has been leading anti-IEBC demonstrations that turned bloody last week, are demanding a similar political deal to restore confidence in the electoral process.

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The opposition suspended the May 30 street demonstrations to give dialogue a chance, but warned that it will be back on the streets on June 6 should the ruling coalition fail to provide a framework for negotiations.

Norman Magaya, the chief executive of Cord, said that the coalition has already come up with proposals that address what it considers problems with the IEBC infrastructure and processes such as the use of technology and transparency in results tallying and transmission.

“Cord is proposing that tallying of the presidential results at the national level be scrapped and results announced at the constituency be treated as final as Nairobi will be left only with the task of receiving and collating,” said Mr Magaya.

He said Cord wants to borrow from Malaysia and Mozambique where commissioners are appointed by political parties, civil society and religious groups. He added that the coalition also wants Form 34 — which all agents sign at the constituency — be stamped and e-mailed to all political parties to ovoid instances where results sent from the constituencies change once they reach Nairobi. 

The Cord coalition has been holding street protests for the past one month demanding the resignation of IEBC commissioners on allegations of corruption, incompetence and alleged bias towards the Jubilee Alliance. But Jubilee has been critical of the street protests and has been advocating for the constitutional path through parliament, which would require Cord to prove its anti-IEBC allegations in parliament after which the latter would petition the president to form a tribunal to investigate individual commissioners.

The third option is for parliament to amend the IEBC Act and terminate the life of the current commission and set up mechanisms for appointing new commissioners.

Nzamba Kitonga, former chairman of the Committee of Experts that drafted the 2010 constitution, said that the current impasse can only be solved through a political solution because the legal and parliamentary option would take months and yet the country is only 15 months away from the General Election.

Mr Kitonga said that any other option can only be effected after the IEBC commissioners voluntarily step aside in public interest to allow the country to move forward and avoid a political crisis.