There are groups of people in this world, who, for pretty obvious reason, believe honesty isn’t always the best policy as long as one doesn’t go out there saying so.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the agency charged with the responsibility of overseeing elections in the country, is managed by one such group of people.
This year, Kenyans will have the opportunity – at least in theory – to choose their leaders in what will be the sixth general election since the restoration of multiparty democracy in 1992.
The stakes are high. Fingers are crossed across the political divide. It’s a generational election that is going to change the political landscape significantly depending on who is sworn in as president.
That said, the IEBC is in the spotlight once again. Since its establishment, the electoral agency has had a difficult relationship with the voter.
In the last two general elections, for instance, voters did their part. Majority braved all manner of challenges in order to exercise their civic duty. But IEBC being IEBC didn’t do its bit as required by the Constitution.
The Constitution expects the IEBC to conduct free and fair elections administered in an impartial, neutral, efficient, accurate and accountable manner.
However, IEBC has come short of this expectation in the past, for two reasons.
One, the spirit of constitutionalism has had a hard time permeating the consciousness of those who wield political power. In other words, the political leadership in Kenya often interprets the law in the context of its own choosing. The law is what the powers that be think the law is.
In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the IEBC didn’t conduct the election in compliance with the relevant laws. In a majority ruling, the court declared the election null and void. The landmark ruling called on IEBC to do, among other things, open its servers. Four years later, that order hasn’t been complied with.
That nobody, especially among the political players, is talking about it is surprising.
We cannot demand justice for tomorrow if we cannot address the injustices of yesterday. It’s disingenuous. You see, some of us criticised the handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga principally because it was a miscarriage of justice. The President and his then nemesis made a personal truce without addressing the fundamental problem that bedevilled the country: electoral (in)justice.
Two, justice is expensive in Kenya because we have institutionalised the culture of impunity. One week before the August 2017 general election, IEBC’s ICT manager Chris Msando was killed in cold blood in what definitely compromised the integrity of the election. To this day, Msando's killers have not been brought to book.
The chief purpose of laws and courts is to bring about some form of order and justice in society. When you have a system that exempts from punishment those who break the law, the concept of order and justice lose meaning.
Kenya’s so-called independent institutions like the IEBC have sunk under the weight of the tyranny of state power.
Until the political leadership in Kenya submits to the tyranny of the law and starts practising constitutionalism, elections will remain popular rituals meant to legitimise acts of self-preservation.
While IEBC, through its chairman Wafula Chebukati, might like to redeem itself from its past mistakes, those who messed up the 2013 and 2017 elections might not allow it to do so.
Journalism student, Multimedia University of Kenya. [email protected]
