Signs of a breakthrough over IEBC encouraging

Reports of a breakthrough in the discussions on electoral reforms offered a much-welcome relief to the country. Starting from a point where intransigence in Government and belligerence from the Opposition had threatened to tip the country, the new developments offers great hope.

With the date of the next elections quickly approaching, there are genuine worries that time is running out to reconstitute a new electoral commission, get it ready in time for the August 8, 2017 General Election. After the talks degenerated into a stalemate between the ruling Jubilee coalition and the Opposition CORD, hopes of a quick resolution faded away.

Among the contentious issues included how to pick new officials of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the voters' register and the period to lodge and dispense with a petition in the presidential vote. It is comforting that a compromise was hammered out following an intervention by President Uhuru Kenyatta and CORD leader Raila Odinga. How to maneuver the political, sectarian and personal interests to pick the new commissioners could have been the deal-breaker. Mercifully, that has been avoided and it is all-systems-go as the MPs draft a report to be presented to Parliament next week. Given the high stakes attached to an electoral outcome, it is critical that things are right from the start. And that includes the voters' roll.

The events following the contested results in the presidential vote in the 2007 General Election (where 1,300 people were killed and hundreds of thousands others were displaced) offers sobering lessons: that a mismanaged electoral process can lead to death and destruction and sink a country; that all parties in an electoral contest must have confidence in the process if the outcome is to be believed.

Hopefully, the next step will seek to cure that and restore the trust and confidence in elections as an integral part of a democracy where the majority have their way and the minority have their say. The joint select committee on the IEBC owes it to Kenyans to deliver resolutions that transcend all the vested interests and restores that trust.