Chebukati reminded the staff there are laws to deal with anyone who may attempt to deny voters a free and fair election and that everyone would carry their own cross should they break the law.
“There are fines of Sh1 million and one-year imprisonment. As a commission, we will not protect any staff member who breaches the law and makes Kenyans not to have a free and fair election,” he said.
Chebukati implored not to have him or his commission to be compared to the IEBC of 2013.
The Chebukati of 2022 may want to follow his own counsel of 2017. Going by what has been printed in the media or shared on social media, and certainly in certain private circles, there are claims Chebukati and some commissioners are compromised and cannot thus be trusted to deliver a credible election.
This is most unfortunate.
Other than greed for easy money, one cannot think of any reason why we cannot have men and women serving as commissioners who are above reproach and be counted on to obey the law in executing their duties and responsibilities.
Yet, election after election, we have had an electoral agency whose commissioners and staff delivered results that were not credible by any measure with the worst being the 2007 polls. The chairman then, Samuel Kivuitu, claimed he did not know who won the elections.
Before passing on, Kivuitu was for all appearances a shadow of his former self and one could readily tell his anguish. A formerly highly regarded Kenyan, no government official showed up at his funeral.
When Issack Hassan succeeded Kivuitu in 2011, there was genuine relief across the country that the electoral commission would finally have a professional to clean up the mess and prepare for a credible election in 2013. This belief was bolstered by another belief that Hassan, coming from the Kenyan-Somali marginalised community, would know fully well the need to have a transparent, open and credible election, where every vote counted.
Hassan proved this to be a myth as he, too, followed his predecessors in delivering a flawed election.
We already know Chebukati’s IEBC of 2017 fared no better. In reaction to yet another horrendous election delivery, the country was poised to see real clamor for break-up or balkanization. All that was saved by the handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and now Azimio presidential flag bearer Raila Odinga.
One would have thought the handshake was all that was needed to unite the country but no. Someone who has been dreaming and plotting to take-over from Uhuru saw it as an impediment to his dreams. So, from the get-go, he started scheming to frustrate the noble objectives of the handshake.
Some of his allies are now said to be bragging that they, not the proverbial system, have the IEBC in their control with one repeating this in the premises of the National Assembly where laws are made.
It is time Chebukati heeds his own warning of 2017 not to break the law lest he and whoever else thinks can operate with impunity learns the hard way.
