Kenya's president signs electoral reform bill, provides over $100m for fresh polls

Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta has signed the controversial electoral reform bill into law on Friday and provided the country’s electoral commission 12 billion Kenyan shillings ($116,110,560) to conduct the October 26 election re-run.

I have signed the Supplementary bill into law this morning StateHouseKenya

— President of Kenya (PresidentKE) October 13, 2017

The new law provides IEBCKenya with Shillings 12b for the October 26th, 2017 elections.

— President of Kenya (PresidentKE) October 13, 2017

The supplementary bill passed by parliament on Wednesday stipulates among others that if a candidate withdraws from a repeat presidential election, the other one would automatically win.

The amendment also limits the ability of the Supreme Court to overturn election results and scraps the minimum requirement to be an electoral commission chairman. It also allows other commissioners to announce the results in the absence of the chairman.

The amendment sparked weekly protests by the opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) and the withdrawal of candidate Raila Odinga from the repeat presidential elections.

They are also calling for a reform at the electoral commission including the sack of CEO Ezra Chiloba and other commissioners for allegedly rigging the August 8 elections in favour of the ruling Jubilee party.

A court ruled on Wednesday that all the candidates in the August 8 elections should be included in the re-run after Thirdway Alliance Party candidate Ekuru Aukot filed a case.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) announced later that all the candidates will be included except Cyrus Jirongo who was recently declared bankrupt by a court.