The Senate has announced that its email system has experienced a malfunction. This is because Kenyans have strong opinions about the proposal to extend the presidential term limit to seven years and those of other elected officials.
The Senate announced in a statement that it had received more than 200,000 responses from Kenyans on Friday.
It said that this had caused the emailing system to exceed the assigned capacity for the number of email addresses.
“I would like to express my gratitude for the tremendous amount of support for the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2024.”
“Meanwhile, our email system has encountered some difficulties due to the overwhelming volume of submissions.
“The Senate received over 200,000 contributions, surpassing the maximum capacity of the assigned email addresses,” the Senate stated in a statement.
It made available an alternate email address for Kenyans to use in order to send in their feedback over the Amendment Bill.
“You also have the option of sending your comments to the following email address: senatejlahrc@parliament.go.ke. We are sorry for any trouble that this may have caused.”
As a result of the planned reforms, Kenyans have taken to the internet to voice their opposition to the suggestions made by Senator Samson Cherargei of Nandi.
There will be a public participation forum at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) on Friday, which is the last day for the public to participate in the contentious Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2024.
Since the second of October, the bill has been open to public debate and involvement.
During the public participation session that will take place on Friday at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), the Senate’s Justice, Legal Affairs, and Human Rights Committee is anticipating that a greater number of Kenyans will present their oral and physical remarks.
As of right now, the terms of office for the president, senators, members of parliament, members of the legislature, and governors are five years. The proposed bill would expand that to seven years.
Since the election of President William Ruto in 2022, this is the second effort to change the restriction on the number of terms that a president may serve.
Farah Yakub, a member of parliament for the Fafi party, was the one who first proposed doing away with the term restriction.
In lieu of the term restriction, the congressman suggested placing an age limit of 75 years.
The initiative, however, was unsuccessful as a result of popular uproar.
Moreover, the President did not agree with the proposal to eliminate the term restriction.
