Chebukati should consider leaving IEBC immediately

The joint sittings of the select committees of the National Assembly and the Senate on Election Laws Bill, 2017, refused to give audience to the chair of the IEBC, Wanyonyi Chebukati, when he appeared before them last week, and instead forced him to return with members of his commission.

The committee then made the commissioners to read, as their views to the committee, a memorandum that had been prepared by the legal department of the IEBC.

If he had succeeded in addressing the committee on his own, and without his fellow commissioners, Chebukati would certainly have made a different kind of presentation.

He would almost certainly have been more critical of the process that is currently under way in Parliament to amend aspects of the country’s election laws, would probably have maintained the line of criticism that he has previously voiced.

DELIBERATE

The session of the committee with the IEBC was deliberate and choreographed.

A key criticism against the amendment law is that it is so unilateral that not even the IEBC, as its alleged beneficiary, was consulted before the draft law was prepared.

For the committee, the optics of hauling the entire IEBC before them were important towards claiming some legitimacy for what they are trying to do.

By getting the IEBC to come, and also finding a way to silence any critical views that the disgruntled Chebukati might have brought before the committee, the political establishment scored big, and will now claim that the IEBC, in principle, supports the amendments, subject to addressing any concerns that might have been mentioned in the memorandum that commissioners read before the committee.

REACHED OUT

The IEBC was not the only entity that the committee reached out to last week.

A number of civil society organisations, not used to being invited to Parliament, also received invitations, which some honoured while a few others politely declined, informing the committees that our objections in principle did not leave room for them to address the committee on the substance of the proposed amendments.

What happened to Chebukati when he went before Parliament is indicative of the very difficult position that the IEBC chair now occupies.

Following the annulment of the presidential election last month, the IEBC came under pressure to be seen to do something that would signify taking responsibility for the annulment of the presidential election.

STAFF CHANGES

Chebukati led the IEBC in promising that there would be staff changes, and also an opening of the servers that were used to transmit the results of the election.

Already the subject of specific attack by the opposition ahead of the election, the IEBC CEO, Ezra Chiloba, became the focal point of demands for staff changes at the IEBC.

Chebukati’s appointment of a task team to help with the preparations of the fresh election was his way of sidestepping the powerful IEBC staff, towards ensuring that the preparations would get on without ado.

However, the majority of the commissioners staged a united and public resistance against these plans before they were eventually prevailed upon to back their chair. 

FALLOUT

The exchange of recriminatory correspondence between Chebukati and Chiloba has since been the subject of wide media coverage.

The correspondence indicates a breakdown in relationship and an attempt by the former to heap all the blame on the latter over shortcomings in the management of the presidential election.

Such open fallout signified a crisis of confidence between the chair and the CEO, and should ordinarily have led to the departure of one of them.

However, the IEBC managed to paper over the cracks and peace has prevailed.

STRENGTHENED

By going after Chiloba but failing to secure his removal, the IEBC chair has been weakened in his own position.

On the other hand, having survived the attempted sanction, Chiloba has been strengthened and is now more powerful than before the General Election.

Other than holding his own, Chiloba now also covers for, and is strengthened by, the powerful group of IEBC staff that the opposition accuses of working for Jubilee.

If Chiloba cannot be touched, neither can they.

PUBLIC POSTURE

In all this, Chiloba’s public posture has also changed.

Already smug before the General Election, there is now a tinge of inviolability in his posture, a contrast with demands elsewhere for his removal.

The task team was meant to lead preparations for the fresh election. It is not clear how this could have been achieved with Chiloba and his staff also still in place.

One view was that since attempting accountability against IEBC staff would need time, the affected staff, together with Chiloba, could have been asked to go on leave to allow space for the task team to prepare for the fresh election.

NO SPACE

Since Chiloba and the staff have remained in place, there has been no space for the task team to take root.

Outside the commission, an unhappy opposition is still calling for reforms at the IEBC and, to press its case, has alternated between demands for a structured dialogue and street protests.

However, the conditions for dialogue are lacking.

Other than severe time constraints, and the legislative work that has further muddied the waters, Uhuru Kenyatta, as the Jubilee candidate, pulled rank when the IEBC convened a meeting with opposition candidate Raila Odinga, choosing to send William Ruto.

ACCOUNTABLE

Operating so completely under the patronage of the Jubilee leadership, a dialogue process that is led by the feckless IEBC would be something of a deception, since the commission seems to have lost the capacity to make independent decisions.  

Less than three weeks before a fresh election for which he is ultimately accountable, Chebukati finds himself between an external political attack that is camouflaged as legislative reform, and an internal bureaucratic bulwark that has ostracised him.

Out there, the opposition remains in the streets, its demands unmet.

Since the IEBC chair has lost the support of his commissioners and the political establishment, he needs to consider leaving the commission immediately. 

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