Cord leaders to meet IEBC officials

Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) leadership will on Thursday morning meet with officials of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for a briefing on the electoral body’s Strategic Plan scheduled to be launched this week.

The meeting, according to a statement to newsrooms, will take place at the Crowne Plaza hotel at 11 am and comes two days after Opposition leader Raila Odinga asked the IEBC to shelve the launch until detailed consultations with political parties are held.

The Opposition leaders are expected to raise concerns about the process that gave birth to the Strategic Plan and the flaws in it that will not allow for holding of credible elections in Kenya.
Some of the flaws that Cord wants discussed include:

  1. Failure by IEBC to address the question of integrity in its ranks and operations. Currently a number of its senior officials are facing corruption, fraud and related charges, before Kenyan courts. Are the charges arising out of systemic lack of institutional accountability mechanisms? Why were there corrupt practices at such high level? To what extent were these corrupt practices wide spread? In what ways did they affect the operations of IEBC and its capacity to deliver credible elections? Why is there no reference to this issue in the review of its work?
  2. Still on the question of corruption, some of the current and previous officials of IEBC have been mentioned in the court of competent jurisdiction as participating in past corrupt electoral practices – what actions has the IEBC taken to address the issue of the so called “Chicken gate for instance? Given the fact that the Chairman of the IEBC has been mentioned directly in the court records – what actions have the IEBC taken? Does the IEBC have any code of conduct that addresses allegations of wrong doing in the high echelons of the commission? How will anybody trust such an institution?
  3. The Chairman of the Commission made a sworn statement submitted to the Supreme Court, making prejudicial statements against the CORD presidential candidate in the 2013 elections. The nature and tone of the statement clearly demonstrate extreme bias and contempt against the CORD candidate – how will a commission led by such a person be expected to hold elections involving the same candidate?
  4. The IEBC by its own admission registered more persons in Jubilee areas than Cord areas – can the IEBC publish the number of clerks, BVR kits and the specific location they were deployed?
  5. What measures have been put in place to address the skewed registration?
  6. Can the IEBC demonstrate why the BVR kits cost more to procure in Kenya than any other place in the world?
  7. Can the IEBC explain why almost all the BVR kits failed to work in the Kenyan election? Can they show where else in the world has such monumental failure ever occurred?