Kenya inquiry urges voting reform

Angry protests broke out after the 2007 elections

A commission of inquiry set up to probe Kenya's contested 2007 polls has called for radical election reform.

The Independent Review Commission (Irec) handed its report to President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga after a six-month investigation.

Irec chairman, South African Judge Johann Kriegler, said that it would be impossible to know who had really won the December elections.

More than 1,500 people died in clashes after claims the poll was rigged.

The violence also displaced another 600,000 people.

Process 'impaired'

The commission, set up by a panel of African Union mediators, said there was no evidence that the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) was guilty of rigging the poll results in favour of President Kibaki or any other candidates.

Judge Johann Kriegler says the election was 'irretrievably polluted'

The electoral crisis was due to systemic dysfunction of the entire electoral system and the ECK should be overhauled or replaced with a new body, the commission said.

"There is radical reform necessary to replace or transform the ECK with a new name - possibly a new image - composed of a lean policy-making body," Justice Kriegler said.

"The process was so impaired that the results were irretrievably polluted… Nobody will ever be able to say who won or who lost this election," he said.

President Kibaki said the government would examine the recommendations in the report for implementation.

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who led the panel of mediators, is expected in the country on Thursday to receive the commission's report.

The panel also recommended that the country should adopt a new voter registration system to restore electoral integrity in the country.

The commission of inquiry held public meetings around the country where members of the public, electoral officials and political party representatives gave their views about the elections.

President Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga signed a power-sharing deal in February to bring an end to the post-election violence and formed a coalition government.