Chebukati engaging a personal consultant cannot necessarily be construed to be illegal. The chairman at the end of the day is the returning officer for the presidential election. This is a responsibility that he shares with no one else in the commission.
Read:
So it is perfectly within his rights and mandate to be able to exercise extra due diligence to ensure that the process works. That is a responsibility vested in him by the Constitution and the Elections Act. As the overall boss, and with the responsibility on his shoulders, he had to be satisfied that the systems are tamper-proof.
Ever since Kenya reverted to multi-party politics, election administration and management have been the weakest link in so far as consolidating electoral democracy is concerned.
We have held six multi-party elections during which time the structure, composition and outlook of the election management agency has changed a number of times.
First was the Chesoni commission, then came the Kivuitu commission, followed by the IIEC then came the Issack Hassan team and now the Chebukati team.
This speaks to one fundamental problem in the election management agency and not just the Chebukati commission.
But based on the IEBC conduct in the 2013 and 2017 elections, it can safely be concluded that the commission as presently constituted cannot be relied upon to procure credible, free and fair elections.
If you compare the IEBC with its sister commissions in countries that have very competitive elections such as Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, then this commission pales in terms of competence and professionalism.
But with respect to the 2017 elections, whereas there were problems with the commissioners, the liability and blame falls squarely with the partisan, incompetent, corrupt and biased secretariat.
That is where the problem lay. This was backed by the Supreme Court findings that invalidated the August 8 presidential election on the basis of irregularities and illegalities. If you unpack the meaning of irregularities and illegalities, the blame falls squarely in the hands of the secretariat that managed the 2017 elections, not the commissioners.
Odhiambo is an elections expert. He spoke to the Star.