Costly affair

The 2013 General Election has been billed as the most expensive one in Kenya, not just for the candidates but also for the electoral commission. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries (IEBC) has been allocated Sh24.9 billion, compared to the Sh8 billion spent by the Electoral Commission of Kenya.

Political parties also appear to be breaking the banks to win the elections. The Coalition for Accountable Financing monitoring research claimed that in 2007, the presidential candidates spent Sh1.2 billion between September 1 and December 15.

The research funded by UNDP showed that President Kibaki’s Party of National Unity and while Raila Odinga’s ODM spent a total of Sh7 billion. A law that sought to cap the amount of money that political parties can spend in a general election was watered down by the 10th Parliament. Various estimates have put this year’s election at a staggering Sh30 billion.