Hurdles facing new polls team

Kenya will this week begin preparing for the process of picking the men and women who will prepare and manage next year’s elections.

And, according to Mr Samuel Kivuitu, the man who was in charge of the commission that managed the last two elections, the country should be preparing for a task of mammoth proportions.

Although Mr Kivuitu and his team left office a disgraced lot, the 72-year-old lawyer and former MP remains one of the most experienced Kenyans in the management of elections.

He has expressed his views on the future elections in papers to the Interim Independent Electoral Commission, the Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution and some MPs.

The Elections Bill is being prepared by the CIC while the Political Parties Bill is among four others that Parliament has agreed to fast-track so they are brought back for debate.

Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee chairman Abdikadir Mohammed said the team plans to spend the entire day Tuesday vetting members of the selection panel for the Independent Election and Boundaries Commission.

The appointment of the panel is already late, but it could begin its work later this week as CIOC has until Wednesday to present its report to Parliament.

The nominees are retired diplomat Mwanyengela Ngali, scholar Prof Marion Wanjiku Mutugi, Committee of Experts director Ekuru Aukot and Ms Rosa Akinyi Buyu.

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) nominated High Court judge Isaac Lenaola and magistrate Emily Ominde to the panel. These two were vetted before their appointment to the JSC.

The Association of Professional Societies of East African picked Dr William Okello Ogara and Ms Sophie Njeri Moturi while the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission advisory board sent Ms Irene Cheptoo Keino and Mr Charles Kariuki Wambugu.

Parliament is expected to pick one or reject all nominees by the JSC, anti-graft board and group of professionals.

The establishment of the team to manage elections will mark the beginning of perhaps the most crucial stage in Kenya’s attempts to get rid of the problems that escalated into the violence of early 2008.

Mr Kivuitu told the Sunday Nation yesterday the panel would need to select people who have integrity, are independent-minded and impartial to the IEBC.

The new commissioners will also need to have the ability to understand politicians, voters and the media and with experience in electoral matters.

The defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya was considered unfit for the job because commissioners had been appointed at the prerogative of the President, with some considered not to have had enough experience as they were appointed a few months to elections.

“The selection of commissioners is now one of the best processes as it is competitive and open.

There were a lot of rumours last time. In fact, when I found out one of the commissioner’s father is a billionaire I was disappointed,” said Mr Kivuitu.

But he cautions that the job ahead for the commissioners is tough as they will be handling a complex and difficult process while working against a tight deadline.

It is largely understood that the next General Election should be held in August next year, meaning that the IEBC, whose formation begins with the vetting of its selection panel tomorrow, will have roughly 12 months to prepare.

The team will be facing the daunting task of ensuring they run an outfit that should not only deliver a credible result but also ensure it is done within the shortest time possible.

The IIEC has received credit in the past for the efficient way it has handled by-elections and the referendum on the Constitution in August last year.

This has largely been due to its efficient way of tallying and transmitting results from the polling stations and centres to the headquarters.

The transmission of results enables the teams monitoring the process have access to them immediately they are sent, making it transparent and lessening anxiety.

With the large number of elected representatives in the next election, the IEBC will also be tasked with developing a way to make it easy to have all the elections on one day.

Voters will elect the President, MP, senator, county assembly representative, governor, senator and a woman representative and, in urban areas, the mayor.

In areas such as Kisii, where the candidates for MP can be as many as 30, developing a ballot paper could prove difficult, said the former elections chief.

With concerns raised about the large number of spoilt votes at last year’s referendum despite the simplicity of the task, voters would require much more education to avoid making errors while selecting from many candidates.

The increase in the number of elected representatives and the accompanying nightmare in designing crowded ballot papers would translate into more time at the voting booth.
The elderly and people with disabilities would spend much more time voting.

“If I were the one consulted, I’d recommend that we hold the elections for the President, the county assembly representative together and probably the women’s representative on one day then on another day, you hold another election for MPs, governors and senators,” said Mr Kivuitu.

The splitting of voting days is common practice in the US and India, which is the world’s largest democracy.

Mr Kivuitu said the introduction of electronic voting would ease the process but would also need to be accompanied by proper education as well as the development of foolproof systems.

The IEBC would prepare for the election by holding mock polls in representative constituencies such as the highly populated Embakasi and the logistically complicated ones in Tana River district or northern Kenya.

The IEBC’s first task will be the review of constituency boundaries to create the 80 new zones required, and the process was not concluded by the defunct Interim Independent Boundaries Review Commission.

Actual boundaries

IIBRC named the new zones and, in the controversy that followed, it was noted that the actual boundaries were not indicated, meaning the IEBC would have to do this.

The team will have four months to review and demarcate the constituencies, and Mr Kivuitu says they would normally need at least six months to do that.

“It is a big process to determine where the boundaries are because the people must agree. You must hold meetings and tell them what your plans are,” Mr Kivuitu said.

With the law requiring that there be elected members to the county assemblies, the IEBC will also be required to identify the boundaries of each county member.

The demarcation of the boundaries will also incorporate those of the reduced number of wards, which are represented by councilors, as recommended by the Task Force on Devolved Government. This, according to Mr Kivuitu, will necessitate massive voter education to make it easier for the voters to select their candidate as well as reduce the number of spoilt votes.

He says this would also need to be done by the IEBC and should be among its first tasks. With the commission laden with all that responsibility, Mr Kivuitu contends that the registrar of political parties should be independent, contrary to the present case where it is under the IEBC.

He said an office handling politicians risks setting some against the commission when it makes decisions that would be badly received by the parties.