Kenya’s electoral commission, just like any other commission in Kenya, has undergone myriad changes.
It was previously referred to as the Electoral Commission of Kenya under the Independence Constitution.
In 1992 under the leadership of Justice Zaccheus Chesoni, ECK was implored to conduct the 1992 General Elections.
However, the commission was bloated and consisted of 21 members, all appointees of the President.
Samuel Kivuitu took over the reins from Justice Chesoni in 1997, skippering the commission through the elections of 1997, 2002 and the violent 2007 elections.
He also oversaw the 2005 referendum. In 2008, after the 2007 election dust had settled, ECK was overhauled and transformed to be the Interim Independent Electoral Commission under Issack Hassan.
The IIEC operated for 12 months alongside the Interim Independent Boundaries Review Commission of Kenya under Andrew Ligale.
In 2011, the two bodies were merged to form the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission with nine members.
In October 2016, Hassan and his team were forced to resign, paving way for the appointment of a new commission in 2017 headed by Wafula Chebukati.
Throughout the lifetime of electoral commissions in Kenya, electoral officials have not shied away from bad publicity or scandal.
The IIEC was rocked by the Chickengate scandal in which officials were given bribes to dish out lucrative contracts in a brazen bribery case.
Former CEO James Oswago was kicked out and taken to court to answer graft charges.
Similarly, after the 2017 polls, then IEBC Chief Executive Officer Ezra Chiloba was removed after months of infighting over audit issues.
Former Auditor General Edward Ouko uncovered that IEBC lost millions of shillings in suspicious procurement extravaganzas.
Despite this huge expenditure, the IEBC still did a shoddy job, leading to the nullification of the presidential elections, a Kenyan and African first.
The commission was impugned by the Supreme Court, its image dented and integrity wiped away in the eyes of the populous.
The commission has an uphill task of repairing their integrity, bearing in mind the political drums sounding towards the 2022 elections.
Surprisingly, despite the huge indictment and accountability failure in the past, the IEBC is still asking for colossal sums to conduct the 2022 polls.
Having been vilified by the Supreme Court, it’s shocking how it’s still business as usual at the commission.
They sit around and come up with hefty and unexplained requests for funds to the exchequer, forgetting that they failed to properly manage what they had in hand.
At this point, you are left wondering whether conscience and integrity do exist.
What would you expect from a chairperson who in his capacity blatantly disregarded the Supreme Court's orders to open and adduce the contents of the electoral servers?
Being in the middle of a pandemic and with every possibility that this pandemic will persist to 2022, it is sad to see that the commission has remained mum on how it plans to conduct the forthcoming elections.
Elections may turn out to be super-spreaders of the virus.
The IEBC would have been issuing guidelines on what it expects to do so the population can be prepared in advance.
To what will it benefit the people to go and exercise a basic right while putting another right at risk?
The composition of the current commission is to be considered null and void. Having a nullified election under their belts due to their misconduct, they should have vacated their posts.
It is as clear as day their conduct and character were called into question and as such, they should recuse themselves and be subjected to fresh vetting just as the current vetting process is going on.
Getting a court order to bar them from holding office will be a waste of time for it is now the norm for the Executive arm of the government to ignore and disregard court orders.
Taking a look outside our borders, countries within Africa have taken up various adaptive measures.
Some of these countries have opted to take advantage and postpone elections as in Ethiopia, leading to civil clashes between those for and against the government.
In Uganda and Burundi, those in power have taken advantage of collusion with the electoral bodies to hold a grip on power and disenfranchise anyone who wants to dethrone them.
In Malawi and Ghana, the governments put so much emphasis on health protocols to ensure voters can be able to vote and be safe at the same time.
These countries even digitalised public observation of the entire process so that the citizens can follow up on what is happening and be content with whatever outcome that may arise.
It goes without saying it is time for the IEBC to awaken from the slumber that has engulfed it and put up a spirited campaign to redeem its name and image.
It should come up with policies that can be legislated in an effort to rectify the challenges they encountered during the previous election.
Ethics and Integrity should be their bread and butter as they work towards the forthcoming election.
Al Hajj Amin is a University Lecturer
(Edited by V. Graham)
