LET A NEUTRAL COMMISSION BE SET UP TO REVIEW BOUNDARIES.

The crisis over creation of new constituencies has seen kenya go through serious political intrigues with members of the opposition accusing the government of gerrymandering for the sake of the forthcoming elections.its notable too that some members of the government of national unity have expressed dissatifaction on how and where the proposed constituencies should be created.therefore at such a trend it will be difficult to have any constituencies that will be created because of sincere need.it is evident that the incumbents are struggling to make sure that any created constituencies favour their re-election come the december general electioncs. Legislation to have a neutral electoral boundaries commission is the only way to ensure fairness in creation of new constituencies. The opposition is sensing gerrymandering by the government while some of the members of the government of national unity feel that if not well calculated, the process may lead to tullymandering (work at the detriment of the incumbent). Habitually such kind of opportunistic manouvres have left ordinary citizens without any improvement to service delivery.whenever gerrymandering has been rampant, only major political parties and the influential people of such parties have benefited at the expense of ordinary citizens. Such a conflict of interests about electoral boundaries is not a new issue in histrory. Although all electoral systems that use multiple constituencies as a basis for determining representation are susceptible to gerrymandering to various degrees, governments using single winner voting systems are the most vulnerable. Most notably, gerrymandering is particularly effective in nonproportional systems that tend towards fewer parties, such as first past the post. Most democracies in the world hate partly proportional electoral systems, where several political parties are proportionally represented in the national parliaments, in proportion to the total numbers of votes of the parties in the regional or national elections. Among Western democracies, states like Israel and the Netherlands are not susceptible to gerrymandering in the national government, as they employ electoral systems with only one (nationwide) voting constituency. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, attempt to prevent gerrymandering by having the electoral boundaries set by non-partisan organisations such as the UK's Boundary Commission. Gerrymandering is most common in countries such as the United States of America where elected state politicians are responsible for drawing constituencies, with few exceptions. Gerrymandering should not be mistaken for malapportionment whereby the number of eligible voters per elected representative can vary widely, and which can also be used to predetermine the overall outcome of an election. Gerrymandering is effective because of the wasted vote effect by packing opposition voters into constituencies they will already win (increasing excess votes for winners) and by cracking the remainder among constituencies where they are moved into the minority (increasing votes for eventual losers), the number of wasted votes among the opposition can be maximized. Similarly, with supporters now holding minimal margins in the unpacked constituencies, the number of wasted votes among supporters is minimized. The most immediate and obvious effect of gerrymandering is for elections to become less competitive in most if not all constituencies, particularly packed ones. As electoral margins of victory become significantly greater and incumbent politicians have safe seats, the incentive for meaningful campaigning is reduced. In 2000, for example, only 57 of the 435 seats (13 percent) of the United States House of Representatives were decided by margins of 10 percent or less. Similarly, voter turnout is likely to be adversely affected as the chance of influencing electoral results by voting becomes badly reduced and, correspondingly, political campaigns are less likely to expend resources encouraging voter turnout. According to political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, the effect of gerrymandering on incumbents is particularly focused, as incumbents are far more likely to be reelected under such conditions. For example, in 2002, only four challengers were able to defeat incumbent members of Congress, the lowest number in modern American history. Gerrymandering also has significant effects on the representation received by voters in gerrymandered electoral areas. Since gerrymandering is designed to increase the number of wasted votes among the electorate, the relative representation of particular groups can be drastically altered from their actual share of the voting population. Such a case in Kenya may arise if the constituency boundaries are created in regard of two major opposing political forces. Sometimes, however, gerrymandering is advocated as a solution for improving representation amongst otherwise underrepresented groups by packing them into a single electoral area. This can be controversial, and may lead to those groups remaining marginalized in the government as they become confined to a single electoral area and representatives outside that area no longer need to represent them to win election. As an example much of the redistricting conducted in the United States in the early 1990s involved the intentional creation of additional "majority-minority" districts where racial minor)ties such as African Americans were packed into the majority. Curiously, this "maximization policy" was supported by elements of both the Republican Party (who had limited support among African Americans) and minority representatives elected as Democrats from these constituencies, who then had "safe seats". As a result of myriad issues associated with gerrymandering and the subsequent impact it has on competitive elections and democratic accountability, numerous countries have enacted reforms making the practice either more difficult or less effective. Countries such as the UK, Australia, Canada and most of Europe have moved the responsibility of drawing constituency boundaries to neutral or cross-party bodies. For fair creation of new constituencies, Kenya needs to adopt this kind of method to avoid such conflicts whenever we approach election. The most commonly advocated electoral reform proposal targeted at gerrymandering is to change the process used in creation of these boundaries. Under these proposals, an independent, and presumably objective, commission should be created and charged with creating fresh constituency boundaries rather than the legislature, the electoral commission of Kenya or the government. To help ensure neutrality, members of the board can come from relatively apolitical sources such as retired state judges or longstanding members of religious groups, possibly requiring adequate representation from competing political parties. Additionally, members of the board can be denied access to information that might aid in gerrymandering, such as the demographic makeup or voting patterns of the population. As a further constraint, consensus requirements can be imposed to ensure that the resulting constituency map reflects a wider perception of fairness, such as a requirement for a supermajority approval of the commission for any constituency proposal. However, in some American states (such as Missouri following 2000 census) this has led to deadlock where the equally numbered partisan appointees were unable to reach consensus in a reasonable timeframe resulting in the courts having to draw the lines. To ensure smooth running of such a commission, it should be formed by the same methods by which the Kenya anti/corruption commission(KACC )was formed whereby all players in the political field will feel represented and not necessarily for the benefit of incumbent members of parliament and the incumbent government., As the world advances in ways of governance, Kenyans must too adopt methods that can reflect good, fair and democratic ways of governance, and setting up an electoral boundaries commission is one such thing that can rid us of the prevailing suspicions and confusion. The commission will be able to only recommend creation of new electoral areas on the basis of merit and not political biasness. FWAMBA NC FWAMBA BOX 41046, 00100 NAIROBI +254721779445