•IEBC is operating with only three commissioners, including the chairman after four members of the commission resigned.
•The summon comes after nominated Senator Mary Seneta demanded a statement on the floor, seeking to know the commission’s plan of activities ahead of the polls
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IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati and the two commissioners are set to be summoned by the Senate over the commission’s preparedness to conduct the 2022 General Election.
The lawmakers have demanded that the commission makes known its roadmap of activities ahead of the elections that are 17 months away.
They raised concerns that either nothing seems to be happening at the electoral agency or the commission is quiet about what it is doing in preparation for the election.
The IEBC bosses will appear before the Senate Justice and Legal Affairs Committee chaired by Nyamira Senator Okong’o Omogeni. He will communicate the date.
The summon comes after nominated Senator Mary Seneta demanded a statement on the floor to know the commission’s plan of activities ahead of the polls.
The legislator sought a statement from the commission through the House Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
“The committee should outline the roadmap of activities, practical strategies, actions and targets to be undertaken in preparations for 2022 General Elections,” she said.
Seneta wants the commission to expound on the methods to be used in the demarcation of electoral areas as well as the reorganisation of polling stations.
“They should state measures, if any, that has been put in place to ensure that the national voter register is updated to remove the dead voters and include all eligible voters,” Seneta said.
IEBC is operating with only three commissioners, including the chairman, after four members of the commission resigned in a huff after the 2017 elections.
Soon after the polls, commissioner Roselyn Akombe resigned, while Margaret Mwachanya, the IEBC vice-chairperson Connie Maina and Paul Kurgat followed suit on April 16, 2018. They said they had no faith in the chairman.
Abdi Guliye and Boaya Molu are the only commissioners at the electoral agency.
Reacting to the statement, senators Moses Wetang'ula (Bungoma), Christopher Langat (Bomet) and Mithika Linturi (Meru) said the activities of the polls agency were a matter of concern.
“Up to this time, it is somehow very surprising that the IEBC has not even come out very clearly on the roadmap to 2022,” Langat said.
The senator said from the composition of the commission, nothing seems to be moving.
“Somehow, we are undercover by the activities of BBI with the perception that everything will be handled by the BBI. We need to understand the measures, if any, that have been put in place by the IEBC,” he said.
Wetang'ula said it was important for the commission to keep the country up-to-date in terms of its preparation for the elections ‘because elections is not an event but a process'.
He said the IEBC needs to continue making it known to the public how many people are getting registered in the process of continuous registration.
Wetang'ula said the commission needs to tell the country how regularly they update the register after registration, and the linkage between the issuance of IDs and registration of new voters.
“If you read the Krigler report, it stated very clearly that election is not about the day people go to cast their ballot.
“It is about the roadmaps to elections, including but not limited to the issuance of IDs, which must be fair and equitable, registration of voters which must be fair and equitable and above all, the integrity of the voters roll,” he said.
Wetang'ula said the IEBC should keep the country abreast of what it is doing in far as the demarcation of electoral boundaries is concerned.