Laws notwithstanding, nothing will save IEBC

Barring a miracle, tomorrow is another protest Monday. Demonstrators, conveniently joined by petty criminals taking advantage of the protests to achieve all manner of nefarious objectives, will take over Nairobi again. The pictures of baton wielding police mercilessly bludgeoning Kenyans on the streets, common sights for those of us who lived in the 90s, will be back in international news.

After passing our “progressive constitution”, and instituting, largely in form, several good governance structures, we had been lulled into a false sense of peace. We believe the bad days are behind us and violence is an aberration. It is no wonder then that after seeing the CORD protests, we desire an urgent exit from possible chaos, and if the price to pay is to chase Issack Hassan and his team out of town, so be it. Now, I have no doubt that the IEBC team will eventually leave town. I do not however believe they will leave town because they are engaged in any unethical conduct significantly different from any public office in Kenya, now or in the future. I do not also believe IEBC will go because it helped “steal” the elections for Jubilee; that’s just convenient political talk. I do not believe they will leave because they have let CORD down on the Okoa Kenya referendum, though they definitely mishandled the process.

They will go because as Kenyans, we have no trust in institutions. We are a big man country. We passed a constitution that created institutions but we do not trust them as long as our big men do not own or control them.

We do not even believe in transparent processes of appointments and vetting, it’s a charade all run by the big men, negotiating and pulling strings behind the scenes, be they from Jubilee or CORD.

After the chaos of 2007, our two big men, Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga bagged us into one government, and for a while, we knew peace, we even loved each other. In 2010, the two big men signed off on the Constitution, and we signed along, not because we necessarily believed in it but because we had been shepherded that way by our chiefs.

In 2011, our two big men bequeathed us with the IEBC and we trusted it. We had no qualms about the integrity and fairness of its officers as long as our chiefs were okay.

We may have a Constitution and electoral laws but our big men are unhappy with the IEBC, no one really feels they own IEBC sufficiently. In those circumstances, nothing can save IEBC, the Constitution notwithstanding.

The only underlying battle is actually how to ensure that the 2017 IEBC is one that reflects our big men’s trust. Have you noted that the most popular mode of appointing new commissioners being floated is one where each of the political parties, meaning the big men, nominate representatives to the commission?

Lawyers who are otherwise very logical are pushing this theme conveniently ignoring the reality that elections are not about the two big players; they are about numerous other parties including voters, hence the need for an independent institution. But will independence guarantee acceptance and therefore peace? Not in big man country. So let us stop this pretense about pursuing electoral reforms, institution building, about integrity and give a blank cheque to our big men to make any necessary changes they can live with. Let us quickly change the law to facilitate them guarantee us peace. In any case we spread hate and kill each other in their names, it shouldn’t be so difficult to just accept their guidance on the smaller things. When did the rain beat us so hard? For the naïve structuralists amongst like me, the reality that Constitutions don’t make nations has been difficult to swallow, but we refuse to give up.

Ultimately, I believe, what will save this country will be solid institutions not those attached to our big men. They will take time to grow, they will not always be perfect, but they will take us further than where we are headed now. How long it will take, and what it will cost before that realisation settles, is the million-dollar question.