Electoral commission should rise above mediocrity

Over the years, it has become abundantly clear to me that most of my compatriots are satisfied with an average performance.

When we are given a job to do, we strive to deliver an average performance.

When it is pointed out that our product is inferior, we shrug and look outwards for someone else to blame, or at best we offer to do better next time.

EXPECTING COMMENDATION

Should we accidentally actually deliver on our promise we expect high praise and national decoration.

We expect to be crowned heroes for doing what we are expected to do exactly as it is supposed to be done.

We project this same attitude to those we employ, and those we purchase goods and services from.

We heavily reward employees who consistently manage to do what we employ them to do, and praise those whose output is only average.

IEBC PERFORMANCE

The laggards manage to survive with hardly a reprimand from us, because we have come to expect mediocrity from almost everyone.

Because most of us are mediocre at what we do, we expect everyone else to be the same as or worse than we are.

An average performance is therefore beyond our expectations, and we treat it as a good performance.

This rant today has been precipitated by a series of events attributed to our electoral management body, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commissions (IEBC).

BALLOT PAPERS TENDER

The dust over the premature ejection of the previous team has hardly settled before the new team gets embroiled in unnecessary fights with politicians.

They appear incapable of following laid-down procedures to procure electoral materials in an open and transparent manner.

Proof of the bungling comes from the commission’s own internal mechanisms that have resulted in the sacking of at least one senior employee and disciplinary action against another.

ELECTIONS

While these matters would be considered grave enough to warrant close scrutiny by independent investigative agencies, nothing of the sort is going to happen here.

We are going to soldier on to August 8 and participate in an election whose outcome many (correctly or incorrectly!) expect not to strictly reflect the will of the voters.

However, after our candidates win or lose, we shall forget all the pre-election shenanigans and celebrate ‘our victories’ and mourn ‘our losses’ whichever way we prefer.

RE-ELECTION
We shall be satisfied if the electoral commission delivers a so-so election, because we expect them to deliver a mediocre one.

We shall be ecstatic if the election winners are average, colourless candidates, because we expect the mediocre ones to win.

After they serve their five-year term, we shall re-elect them if their delivery was average, because we expected them to be mediocre.

INCOMPETENCE

We have low expectations of those we give any kind of work to do for us, because we have such low expectations of ourselves to begin with.

The electoral commission is exposing itself to unnecessary controversy because both the commissioners and many of the employees have very low expectations of themselves, and as a result, they expect us to ignore their missteps and only celebrate their average performances.

As a result, any close scrutiny of their activities on any given day will raise more evidence of impropriety born not necessarily of malice, but of sheer incompetence and a culture of mediocrity.

EXCEED EXPECTATIONS
To be honest, one cannot heap all the blame on the IEBC as if it is made up of ectopic individuals sent to us from planet Mars.

It is fair to say their low expectations of the populace has been borne out so many times that they can be forgiven for thinking that they can get away with the occasional blunder.

They are just unlucky this time that a number of citizens are more vigilant than in the past due to the high stakes the coming elections portend for the contestants.

For this reason alone, one hopes the IEBC will for once surpass our mediocre and average expectations and deliver an above-average election.

Such a performance should earn them, as would be expected in a society of mediocre expectations, the highest national awards and honours!

Atwoli is Associate Professor and Dean, Moi University School of Medicine [email protected]