Seize chance to plan for credible elections

The journey to the next General Election kicks off today when the electoral agency starts registering voters across the country.

Last month, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) unveiled the road map to a Sh45 billion election, Kenya’s most expensive election to date.

The first step in any electoral process is conducting voter registration. It is here that every eligible voter is given a fair chance to register. A flawed registration exercise is a sure recipe for a contested electoral process and doesn’t sit well with the democratic ideals we hold dear as a nation.

The Opposition had opposed the exercise, demanding the purchase of more equipment to allow every polling station to register voters instead of registration officers moving from one station to another, with a high risk of leaving out some would-be voters. It is easy to understand their fear. But those fears might have been assuaged after the commission doubled the kits to 5,756 and secured a Sh570 million funding from the European Union last week.

The month-long exercise also gives IEBC a chance to prove it has learnt from past mistakes and that it can avoid the usual pitfalls politicians capitalise on to discredit the whole electoral process. The thing is, the Opposition, nay every Kenyan, ought not find a reason to cry foul later or have grounds to question the outcome of next year’s election. In 2013, a litany of avoidable mishaps gave the Opposition reason to contest the results of the presidential elections at the Supreme Court. While it is not wrong to contest election results, IEBC would save the country anxious moments that come with a contest that ends up in a courtroom.

Yet it is foolhardy to expect that the success of the polls lies with one institution, the IEBC. Far from it. Success will be guaranteed by the way various institutions work together. Parliament and the National Treasury will have to ensure that funds are not only available, but are disbursed in good time. Political parties must adhere to the timetable given and most importantly, political leaders will have to prevail upon their followers to remain peaceful in the period leading up to the voting on Tuesday, August 8, 2017.