Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah

Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah is now vouching for constitutional change to enable Kenya to adopt the electoral college system of voting in presidential elections, similar to that of the US, in an effort to devolve the presidency.

“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.

“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 mobilization of the national electorate at presidential elections.

An electoral college system would curb the influence of tribalism

The activist further cites that the electoral college system would help curb tribal politics in Kenya and stop the big five tribes from dominating national politics.

“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.

The adoption of the electoral college system of voting, according to Omtatah, will pave way for issue-based national politics and the politically marginalized tribes such as the El Molo will have a realistic opportunity to be elected the president of Kenya.

To win an election,  a presidential candidate 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.