How elections body will pave way for reforms

SUNDAY NATION: Considering the enormity of the task ahead, what is the starting point for you and the eight commissioners?

Mr Hassan: We are called the Interim Independent Electoral Commission because our role is transitional.

We are here in an interim capacity and our job is to set up structures for the new commission. We are supposed to establish an efficient and effective secretariat. According to the Kriegler report, the previous commission was quite large. There were 22 commissioners and they sometimes did the secretariat’s job.

We want to have a very clear separation between the two. The secretariat should be the technical arm of the commission and the commissioners will serve as the policy-making organ.

How soon will you set up the new secretariat?

We are going to carry out a very thorough recruitment process. We hope to get qualified Kenyans from across the country with the aid of a competent recruitment firm.

When hiring the new secretariat, will you consider some of the former Electoral Commission of Kenya staff as a way of retaining some institutional memory?

I do not want to pass judgment on any of the former workers here. Whatever has happened has happened and Parliament has passed the law which disbanded the entire commission. Some of them have been redeployed in the civil service while others have been given a gratuity.

We will start from scratch. Some of the former workers are still part of the public service and so we can always call on them. We have already had to consult some of them for certain clarifications during the handover process.

What are the other IIEC priorities?

Conducting fresh voter registration is one of the most important exercises ahead. That may take us the entire duration of our tenure, as voter registration, under law, is continuous and only stops during election time.

Once a good secretariat is in place, we can start employing registration officers and their support staff who will go to every constituency and start conducting registration of voters. This will be continuous until the referendum (on the new constitution).

Since you will have to wait until you set up a secretariat to embark on voter registration, what is the plan for the by-elections in Bomachoge and Shinyalu?

We want to have a crash programme for voter registration and have a register in place for the by-elections.

I know that there are those who argue we should use the old register but there are a lot of misgivings about that, especially if you look at the High Court ruling on Bomachoge. It said the tally of presidential votes cast was 48,000 while the combined votes cast for MPs was 38,000. That means the register is contentious.