Elections can be held together: Gamato

 ELECTORAL Commissioner Patilias Gamato says national and local level government elections can be conducted at the same time.

He said the LLG presidents and councilors can also serve the same terms in office as the parliamentarians.

According to the Organic Law on National and Local Level Government elections and the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Government, both the national and LLG elections can be run “concurrently”.

“The term of National Parliament is five years hence the term of office for LLGs must be concurrent with the term of Parliament,” Gamato said.

“If the writs for the LLGs are issued in accordance with the term of Parliament, the LLGs will fully operate until the return of writs like the Parliament.”

Section 105 (1) of the Constitution states that the general election should be held every five years. 

But there was no specific provision in either of the organic laws which set out a separate time period for the term of the local level governments, except that the “term shall be the same as and run concurrently with the term of Parliament”.

“This simply means that the term for the LLGs is also five years, but to run concurrent with the term of Parliament,” he said.

Because of irregularities during voting in some LLG elections in the Highlands region, they were declared as failed by the Electoral Commission.