IEBC conference offers a chance to tackle election fears

As the campaigns for the next elections get under way, a three-day National Elections Conference opens on Monday in Nairobi and will attract participation from all around the country.

Organised by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), in collaboration with partners, including Kura Yangu Sauti Yangu, the conference is conceived as a high-level opportunity for dialogue among actors that are involved in the country’s elections.

In this regard, President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Nasa opponent, Raila Odinga, are both invited.

COMMISSIONERS

Also, the leaders of key institutions, including Chief Justice David Maraga and Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet, are expected at the event.

The conference could have come earlier, at a time when there was more room for the discussions to affect preparations for the elections.

One of the problems that delayed the idea of high-level consultations on elections was the unresolved question of the former IEBC commissioners, and the intransigence that developed about their fate.

A contestation about the fate of the IEBC commissioners strained relationships and undermined the possibility of dialogue between Jubilee and Cord.

IEBC'S COMMITMENT

Secondly, a conference of this nature needed the leadership of the IEBC.

However, the IEBC commissioners lacked the legitimacy to convene such a conference.

The fact that the IEBC is finally able to pull off a conference of this nature is an indication that there has been improvement in the legitimacy of the elections body.

POLLS PREPARATION

The delay in organising the conference has also forced a change of its purpose.

Originally, the idea was that a conference was needed to provide a high-level opportunity for a dialogue that would address fundamental issues in the country’s politics, and shape preparations for the elections.

However, with so little time before the elections, it is unlikely that the conference can now shape the preparations, which ought to be inching towards conclusion.

WAFULA CHEBUKATI TEAM

Therefore, the conference is now seen as an opportunity to review the status of the preparations, and a chance for key participants, whether political actors or election managers, to provide solemn assurances that they will do their part in the elections.

While the IEBC is the lead agency in the management of elections, the current commissioners only came into office in January and have been struggling to establish themselves.

For these commissioners, the conference is an opportunity to assert their leadership, and that of the IEBC, in the management of elections, and to showcase the preparations that have taken place.

ELECTION VIOLENCE

If the IEBC has prepared well, the conference will provide a good opportunity for a public accounting of those preparations.

The conference will be a good opportunity to address pervasive fears that the forthcoming elections, like very many recent elections since the re-introduction of multi-party politics, could be the occasion for large-scale political violence.

Political violence has been instigated by, or for the benefit of, the country’s elites as a reaction to perceived injustice, to increase their bargaining power or to undercut the influence of competitors.

Since disagreement among the country’s political elites is a leading cause of the political violence, the conference should aim to ensure that these provide assurances that they will not seek to take the country down in the event of problems with the management of the elections.

HATE SPEECH
The conference should also reflect on the security arrangements for the elections.

There are two key areas of concern in relation to the role of the police during elections.

The first is monitoring and addressing hate speech and incendiary language.

The build-up to these elections has already witnessed incidents of hate speech about which there has been complete inaction by the authorities, including the police.

Are the police waiting for actual violence to erupt before they can take action against incendiary language?

POLICE RESPONSE
The second area of concern for the police is around public order policing.

The Waki Commission, examining the performance of the police in managing public order in the context of the 2007 violence, concluded that “police response ranged across the full gamut: from examples of heroism to abject failure in discharging even the most basic of its mandated roles".

While police faced vastly different challenges to public order issues across the country, their responses also varied a great deal, with particularly brutal force being exhibited in opposition strongholds.

Also, the Waki Commission found that, ahead of the elections, police attitudes were that they did not need any preparations since they would be good on the day.

In relation to this election, the police have been insisting that they are ready.

ANTI-IEBC PROTESTS
However, their response to protests that opposition Cord staged last year to press for the removal of IEBC commissioners, proved a reminder of a propensity on the part of the police to quell public protest with unwarranted force.

Also, the country is going into elections with an unresolved security situation in the North Rift Valley, a reflection of ongoing challenges in addressing serious security issues.

It is conceivable that there will be many public protests accompanying the ongoing elections.

Based on their performance in addressing those protests, there are concerns that the police have work to do ahead of the elections.

JUDICIARY

It is to be hoped that, during the conference, police will provide some specifics on the kind of preparations that they have made.

Finally, the Judiciary merits some examination.

The Judiciary has not shaken off the crisis of confidence generated by the 2013 presidential petition.

As a result, the Supreme Court has been dislodged from the central role it occupied as the country approached the 2013 elections.

VOTE COUNTING

One issue, though, that the court and the IEBC need to address ahead of the elections is the formula to be applied in tallying the presidential vote.

The country is stuck with a poorly reasoned finding by the Supreme Court that only “valid votes” are to be counted, an unexplained departure from the constitutional stipulation that “all votes cast” must be counted.

Leadership is needed as will provide a way of establishing clarity on this issue, which will be a practical consideration when the votes come in.

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