The presidential election dispute exposed the double visions of the electoral agency. The face you see depends on whether you occupied the respondents' side of the legal drama or the petitioners' corner.
The independent arbiter of elections has been on trial in four successive elections. But each time the leadership of the commission belabours its independence.
The Constitution secures the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to safeguard it against external interferences. There is also security of tenure for its commissioners.
The insurance should make the IEBC a defender of the sovereignty of the people. It is supposed to secure the observance of democratic values and principles, and promote constitutionalism to the detail. And to do these without being seen as partial.
But the IEBC is still below the institution the 2010 Constitution intended. It is seen to be embedded to vested interests; sometimes sucking up to the state or other forces.
The consequences of an embedded electoral agency have been dire. Risks to national security have been heavy. Perennial tolls on the economy have been huge. Dents on Kenya as a budding democracy have been massive.
The disputed 2022 presidential election is still trending. About Sh44 billion was disbursed to the IEBC to run free and fair elections. Although the Supreme Court gave the IEBC a pass, it confirmed clashing public perceptions of one organisation.
The IEBC has been cuddling up to vested interests. A split commission and a disputed electoral process confirm the fears cynics have always raised about the IEBC under chairman Wafula Chebukati. The agency's predecessors were equally jinxed.
The Kenyatta International Convention Centre was the theatre of electoral muddle in 2007, under the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya.
Bomas of Kenya has twice been the stage of disputed electoral processes. The buried Interim Independent Electoral Commission under Isaack Hassan presided over disputed presidential election in 2013.
Converting the two venues into 'national election tallying centres' has always given the institutions bad names. KICC was the scene of electoral mischief in 2007, with the blatant say-so of the Mwai Kibaki state. The man was sworn in at night without the late Samuel Kivuitu, the ECK chairman, knowing the winner.
The will of the people was overturned to secure Kibaki a second presidential term. A complicit electoral commission sucked up to vested interests, as baffled voters decried electoral injustices.
Bomas was the venue of electoral crimes in 2013, with the full backing of the state. The compromise of the electoral agency created suspicions and a disputed presidential election.
The defilement of the will of the electorate was repeated during the 2017 presidential election. The Supreme Court, under then Chief Justice David Maraga, exposed illegalities and irregularities in the electoral process. The Supreme Court nullified the presidential election and then ordered a fresh election.
The IEBC was again in court over the conduct of the 2022 presidential election. An agent of a party to the electoral context described the Bomas National Tallying Centre as a 'crime scene' on August 15. The Supreme Court reports it found crimes to warrant voiding the election results.
Chebukati, the outgoing IEBC chairman, may have passed the test of the Supreme Court, but public perception of his leadership is not flattering.
Defenders of electoral justice have twice questioned Chebukati's ability to run free and fair elections. His leadership style has also attracted not-so-flattering comments. Defections, desertions and disaffections of commissioners have exposed him to public suspicions.
To beneficiaries of Chebukati's leadership, the man is a hero. They may even want him celebrated. Bomas of Kenya could even be renamed Chebukati Gardens.
To victims of his deficiencies, Chebukati is a villain who should be surcharged and then deposited at Kamiti Maximum Prison, without the option of a fair trial.
Kenya is, indeed, a case of clashing perceptions of one public officer who should be seen to be independent.
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