Musalia Mudavadi threatens to boycott 2017 elections over IEBC

Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi

Pressure continues to mount on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to exit with Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi threatening to boycott next year's general elections.

Mudavadi joined CORD in threatening not to participate in the polls should the electoral commission insist on presiding over the polls.

The former deputy prime minister told IEBC commissioners to resign since it was "the only honourable thing for them to do" to prevent the country from plunging in another round of political violence.

"Sometimes it is good to listen to people. And if everybody is complaining about you the only honourable thing to do is to resign," said Mudavadi at A church function in Madaraka, Nairobi.

He said his party would only participate in the polls if the commission is reconstituted, adding that should the commissioners ignore calls to vacate office, Kenyans would not accept the elections outcome.

The ANC presidential flag bearer called for a "serious dialogue" involving all stakeholders to initiate major reforms in the electoral body.

He said the discussions should not be confined only to political parties in Parliament but should allow for participation of all stakeholders since elections are about people and not political parties.

"We have to dialogue to reconstitute the agency because Kenyans have no confidence with IEBC presiding over the next year's polls," he said.

He went on, "The dialogue should not be about political parties in Parliament because IEBC is about all Kenyans. We want everybody involved, including the religious leaders."

Ruling Jubilee coalition has previously challenged the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) to bring motion to disband IEBC in Parliament.

But CORD has resorted to mass protests citing Jubilee tyranny of numbers in Parliament and alleged frustrations by IEBC in their quest to bring reforms through the Okoa Kenya Initiative, which collapsed after the commission said the team did not meet the 1 million signatures threshold.

"If we don't reconstitute the commission then we would face what we went through in 2007," said Mudavadi.

Pressure for IEBC commissioners to leave office before next year’s polls have continued to build up with Council of Churches of Kenya, Central Organisation of Trade Union (Cotu) and Law Society of Kenya also joining the foray.

He buttressed his calls with claims that IEBC bungled its one-month mass voter registration exercise.

"We have said that IEBC has a problem. It started with mass voter registration in which they mismanaged and missed their target of four million new voters," he said.

Some of the reforms the former deputy premier is rooting for include putting up a tallying centre accessible to international observation groups.

He also wants presidential results announced at the constituency level to prevent manipulation during transmission.