For badly letting the country down, Hassan and his team should resign

What you need to know:

  • Moreover the “technological” safeguards created by the IEBC turned out to be smoke and mirrors to deflect us from the fact that this election was manual, and intended to be manual.
  • The leaked internal review of the IEBC also points to serious concerns and it is instructive that to date IEBC has not deemed it necessary to release the review, and more importantly, to submit to an independent and external review of their conduct over the last elections.
  • Let’s be clear: Elections are the most significant trigger to discontent, frustrations and conflicts in Kenya today. It is not enough that the IEBC has the confidence of 50 percent of the country.

Ahmed Isaack Hassan, the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, penned an opinion this week, pleading with Kenyans to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding their capacity and integrity to manage the next elections.

We should do no such thing. We did that in 2013 and he failed us miserably. Once bitten, the old adage goes, twice shy.

In fact, it is in Uhuru Kenyatta’s interest to do a Michael Gichangi, and David Kimayio thing, and engineer the departure of Hassan and his team as soon as possible. For as long as Hassan remains in office, any declaration that Kenyatta has been duly elected will always be viewed with doubt.

Here’s why. First Hassan is on record expressing his bias against Raila Odinga when he made his final submissions to the Supreme Court in March 2013. He expressed contempt and disdain, calling Odinga all manner of names.

He may have whatever thoughts and opinions he wants on anyone, but the rules of natural justice demand that these opinions on any candidate must never be disclosed and never ever in a court document.

How can he ever be perceived as independent and not working against Odinga, if Odinga contests again?

Second, the last elections, contrary to the revisionism that Hassan now attempts, were a mess! We still don’t know who was registered or not, as the IEBC keeps a data base not a register, notwithstanding that the Supreme Court missed this point entirely in their flawed and weak judgment.

Had they focused on the process, rather than the results, as Gladwell Otieno and Zahid Rajan stressed in their petition, and also read and watched all the videos submitted in that petition, this would have been crystal clear.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Moreover the “technological” safeguards created by the IEBC turned out to be smoke and mirrors to deflect us from the fact that this election was manual, and intended to be manual. Every single technological gimmick failed and we reverted to the manual system that produces results as needed.

Fourth, the convictions in the London “chicken-gate” affair should be more than enough to disqualify the entire team! Yes they were not on trial themselves, but the information flowing from that trial is sufficient to raise serious doubts about Hassan’s integrity.

The leaked internal review of the IEBC also points to serious concerns and it is instructive that to date IEBC has not deemed it necessary to release the review, and more importantly, to submit to an independent and external review of their conduct over the last elections.

Let’s be clear: Elections are the most significant trigger to discontent, frustrations and conflicts in Kenya today. It is not enough that the IEBC has the confidence of 50 percent of the country.

No! They need at least 75 percent confidence, which they don’t have. Indeed, polls consistently place them at the 30 percent level of confidence. That is unacceptable.

And it is not the actions of the IEBC that prevented violence in 2013. Rather it was the hopes that we all had in the Constitution and its organs.

We were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It is a good first step to hire Ezra Chiloba as CEO but unless he has new Commissioners and new staff he will fail.

The Supreme Court was the most significant safety valve that we had. It did not matter how the Court ruled. What was crucial was they make a judicious decision.

They failed this test, and by doing so, destroyed the safety valve function which is one of the main reasons they were created. As they are today, no “losing” candidate will bother to file a petition with them, and God Save Kenya if the election is close.