Civil society organisations have asked the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to put its act together and avoid the flaws that led to the nullification of the 2017 presidential elections.
They also called on Kenyans to reject tainted and corrupt candidates seeking leadership positions as they go to the ballot on Tuesday.
The groups, under the umbrella of Kura Yangu, Maisha Yangu Initiative, urged IEBC to rise to the occasion and deliver free and fair elections.
The initiative brings together 23 civil society organisations.
“There is no time to bungle the elections,” the lobby group said in a statement read by National Civil Society Congress coordinator Suba Churchill.
The team led by Churchill and Inter-regional Peace Network executive director Fredrick Ogweno addressed a press conference at the Serena Hotel, Nairobi on Monday.
Churchill said IEBC should do the right thing by ensuring the process of casting, counting, tallying, verification and transmission meet the constitutional threshold.
In 2017, the Supreme Court declared invalid, null, and void the results of the presidential elections after it indicted the commission of committing illegalities and irregularities.
“The Supreme Court censured the IEBC on this score, and Kura Yangu Maisha Yangu can only hope that the commission learnt from its previous mistakes,” Churchill said.
“There is no better time than now, that Kenya has bestowed on the IEBC the solemn duty to ensure the realisation of this constitutional ethos and aspirations for the people of Kenya.”
Ogweno asked the commission to conduct transparent elections and avail all the relevant information to the stakeholders and the public without being compelled by the courts.
This, he said, will enhance public trust in the commission and thus the credibility of the exercise.
“We hope IEBC will not be compelled through a court order to open the servers but because they are going to do a good job, they will just open the servers by themselves,” Ogweno said.
“We are calling for nothing less than credible, transparent, and accountable, free and fair elections.”
The group called on Kenyans to scrutinise before voting for candidates lest they elect corrupt leaders as has been the case in the previous elections.
They said the voters should shun tainted, corrupt and business-as-usual leaders who cannot account for pledges they made in previous elections.
“We call on the voters to shun candidates that were flagged by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission but which the IEBC went ahead to clear despite their ongoing criminal and corrupt past,” Churchill said.
The EACC had flagged some 241 aspirants and recommended the IEBC not to clear them to run for the elections for integrity concerns.
Most of them have been implicated in corruption with some either battling cases in court or are under active investigation by the commission.
However, the electoral agency cleared them citing a lack of powers to bar them from contesting the elections.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
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