Lack of trust in IEBC and judiciary ought to be addressed

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has kicked off the next electoral season announcing the roadmap that will be followed in the elections.

The priority item in that roadmap is the registration of voters, which will start on February 15 to run for 30 days until March 15.

As with the previous elections, money is an important factor in the plans.

The commission reportedly sought a budgetary allocation of Sh2 billion but was given only a quarter of that amount, Sh500 million.

As a result, in the forthcoming registration process, the IEBC will reportedly be unable to utilise the full capacity of BVR kits that it possesses, since it cannot hire enough registration clerks to cover the available kits.

In the circumstances, IEBC plans to deploy two registration clerks in each of the 1,450 electoral wards in the country who will use only 2,900 kits, out of the 16,600 kits that the commission has in its possession.

This situation does not seem ideal but, with budgetary constraints, it is difficult to see what other options are available to the IEBC.

One of the problems with giving the IEBC as much money as it asks for is that Parliament, and the whole country, still remembers that the commission did not make the most prudent use of its financial allocation in the last elections.

The monumental procurement blunders that characterised the last elections are a reason why there is little sympathy for the IEBC’s reported financial shortages.

The fact there was no meaningful attempt to address the procurement problems that accompanied the last elections is likely to have a direct effect on the next ones.

LACK OF TRUST

Even where the commission genuinely needs more money, there will be understandable reluctance in providing the money and this may affect preparations for the elections.

There has been relatively little public information about the commencement of the registration process.

In the lead-up to the 2013 elections the IEBC, borrowing a leaf from the interim commission that had replaced the disbanded Electoral Commission of Kenya, had done a fairly good job in carrying out public outreach about its plans for the elections 2013.

This assisted in creating an appropriate level of public awareness about the elections and aided the voter registration process.

The next election season must anticipate a number of problems that may have an effect on how the actual election results are viewed in the end.

While the IEBC did not carry out a perfect election in 2013, it has managed to shield its performance from real scrutiny and now hopes to lead the country into another set of elections while important questions on the last elections remain unanswered.

As it did last time, the IEBC is proposing another technology-driven election complete with simulations to test the efficacy of the systems.

In addition to a BVR and electronic identification system, the IEBC is proposing to procure scanners to scan the results at polling station level and send them electronically to the national tallying centre.

As they did last time, these plans sound good and would otherwise have evoked a huge benefit of doubt in favour of the commission.

The truth, however, is that there is little basis to give the commission this benefit.

Ultimately, the biggest problem that will confront the preparations for the next elections is a lack of trust in the institutions that are supposed to lead on the elections.

Because the IEBC intends a technology-driven election, it will, again, enter into another relationship with Safaricom to provide a Private Virtual Network to transmit the results.

Again, this is not exactly a high-trust relationship, given the close, and sometimes baffling, connections that Safaricom has now established with Jubilee, which is an interested party in the elections.

ROOM FOR CHANGE

Away from the IEBC, another institution charged with the management of the next elections is the Judiciary, whose Supreme Court is the arbiter of disputes arising from the presidential election results.

Again, while the performance of the Supreme Court last time round led to some controversy, there have been no efforts to address how the performance of the court is likely to affect the next elections.

In the meantime, the Supreme Court has come under embarrassing internal squabbles surrounding the retirement of some of its members, which has significantly eroded its authority.

The expected retirement of Chief Justice Willy Mutunga and the unresolved controversy resulting from a law that Parliament enacted last year which seeks to give the president a stronger hand in the appointment of Mutunga’s successor, adds further uncertainty to preparations for the elections and guarantees that whatever role the judiciary plays in the forthcoming elections will almost certainly be controversial.

Elections are the only peaceful means through which ordinary people get to express their preferences about how they would like public life to be managed.

While Kenyan elections have been a make-or-break affair, subjecting the country to grave uncertainties, elections, in principle, can be a source of unity and strength for a country.

One only needs to look at the effect that properly-run elections have had in Nigeria.

While elections did not eliminate Nigeria’s pre-existing problems, they have created supportive circumstances where Nigerians can try and address those problems.

Establishing the missing trust in the institutions charged with managing the next elections is ultimately a political process, one that these institutions are not in control of.

There is a political discussion that needs to take place about the management of the country’s next elections and this is something that all compatriots should support.

[email protected]