January 25, 2025

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Timely – Precise – Factual

Help IEBC deliver a clean election

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The consequences of the bungled 2007 polls are too grave to remember. But the lessons learnt remain an indelible stain in the Project Kenya narrative.

 One of them is that elections tend to test the fragility of our nationhood.

The 2007 polls pushed the country to the edge of the abyss. In 2017, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) was indicted for bungling the Presidential election which was nullified by the Supreme Court.

In their historic judgment, the justices of the apex court found that the elections had not been “conducted in accordance with the Constitution” and declared the outcome “invalid, null and void”.

IEBC on Twitter: "The #ECVR2021 exercise will be conducted in the 27,241  gazetted registration centers countrywide that include the 52 Huduma  centers. Kit movement within the County Assembly Ward will be agreed

They ruled that the commission had committed “irregularities in the transmission of results” and ordered a repeat.

The court sent a strong message and set a very high threshold that elections must not only be credible, free, fair and transparent but must also be conducted in the manner dictated by the Constitution.

The sobering ruling remains the anchor guidebook on the conduct of the 2022 General Election which is only eights months away.

That is why Kenyans should be alarmed by the warning by the electoral agency that the August 2022 polls might be exposed to nullification unless Parliament makes critical amendments to the law to smoothen the process.

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 It will be remembered that the IEBC was heavily indicted on the transmission of results and failure to use technology, on top of other procedural failures that undermined the transparency principles anchored in the Elections Act and the Constitution.

 In its proposals, the elections body wants Parliament to pass a law on an alternative way to transmit results in the event technology fails.

The team also says legislation should be put in place to compel parties to nominate women as a way of bridging the gender gap.

Additionally, the commission wants a law to prohibit the opening of its servers, saying it is a high-risk security feature.

Kenya: the potential and limitations of electoral technology |  International IDEA

The agency proposes that it be made clear that the poll results announced at the tallying centre be considered final.

Moreover, the agency wants legal amendments to block its involvement in party primaries, arguing that it amounts to conflict of interest on its part.

 While some of the proposals are debatable, we commend the effort by IEBC to get it right in the 2022 General Election and ask Members of Parliament and other key stakeholders to rise to the occasion and play their part.