IEBC crisis bolsters Roselyn Akombe’s claims of infighting

The split in the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) which has culminated in the resignation of three commissioners and the suspension of the chief executive officer has vindicated Dr Roselyn Akombe on claims about infighting.

On Monday, vice chairperson Consolata Maina and commissioners Margaret Mwachanya and Paul Kurgat castigated chairman Wafula Chebukati and resigned from the commission, saying they had no faith in his leadership.

The three expressed their dissatisfaction with the suspension of CEO Ezra Chiloba, claiming that under Mr Chebukati “the commission boardroom has become a venue for peddling misinformation, grounds for brewing mistrust and a space for scrambling for and chasing individual glory and credit”.

POLITICAL INTERESTS

Days to the October 26 repeat presidential election, Dr Akombe resigned, saying the commission had become a competition of political interests.

“It has become increasingly difficult to continue attending plenary meetings where commissioners come ready to vote along partisan lines and not to discuss the merit of issues before them.

"It has become increasingly difficult to appear on television to defend positions I disagree with in the name of collective responsibility,” Dr Akombe said when announcing her resignation.

But in a strange twist of fate, the events that have rocked the commission seem to bolster Dr Akombe’s view on the challenges facing IEBC in a report she authored and delivered to the commission just a week after she fled to the US and resigned, fearing for her life.

In her report, End of Assignment, Dr Akombe paints a grim picture of a commission tottering on precariously, mostly at the mercy of powerful political actors and the secretariat.

CHEBUKATI SUMMONED
It was on the basis of the report that the Senate's Justice, Legal Affairs and Human Rights committee invited Mr Chebukati and the two commissioners for a meeting to shed light on the goings-on at the commission.

And even though both sides had confirmed attendance, the meeting fell through on Friday.

In the report delivered to the commission on October 30, 2017, Dr Akombe says one of the fundamental problems at the commission is that there are two centres of power.

One centre of power is led by the chairman and the other by the CEO, a situation she argues has allowed political actors a convenient way of pitting one centre against the other, to their (political actors) own benefit.

“This indeed happened in the commission on many occasions, including towards the end of my tenure with some commissioners aligning themselves with the chairman and others with the CEO,” she says, in the 93-page report, which she says covers the period of her tenure.

POLL NULLIFIED
She gives the example of September 7, 2017 when five commissioners issued a statement disavowing a memo from the chairman to the CEO over the conduct of the August 8 presidential election, which had been nullified by the Supreme Court.

Two commissioners later recanted their support for the chairman.

“Such open divisions within the commission placed the rest of the staff, especially those in the field, in a difficult position where they were forced to choose between the chair and his allies and the CEO and his allies. This was detrimental to the morale,” she says, adding that attempts to mediate these two centres of power did not succeed.

To have a truly independent commission, she proposes that the process of appointing the chairman, commissioners and other secretariat staff should be changed.

RECOMMENDATIONS

She says: “The patronage in appointments is the greatest disservice to the nation as it takes away the ability to make decisions independently and professionally.”

She warns that the legal requirement that gives the President the final decision to pick the chairman and the commissioners makes everyone a captive of the state.

She thus recommends the National Assembly should institute a public inquiry into the conduct of 2017 general election, especially the use of technology.