IEBC did a shoddy job in 2013 elections, says LSK report

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission's  preparation for the 2013 General Election was largely poor, lacklustre and uninspiring, a new report shows.

The report by Law Society of Kenya titled Review of the Electoral Process in Kenya: An Appraisal of the 2013 General Election, notes that the commission’s preparation was wanting in many respects.

Launching the findings in Kisumu on Friday, LSK council member James Mwamu said the report was prepared by a task force formed to look into factors that may have led to the contested election.

“In many instances the IEBC reduced itself to a mere spectator as political actors flouted electoral timeliness at will,” reads the report.

Poor procurement procedures, lack of control of electoral finances, party agents being removed from tallying centres and propaganda may also have compromised the credibility of the March 2013 polls, noted the 44-page document.

“The process of procurement of voting materials and essential technology was undertaken with no sense of urgency, starting a domino effect of missed deadlines and last-minute extensions for a wide range of steps in the election process,” said Mwamu.

He stated that in July 2012,  with less than a year before the  polls, the IEBC failed to award a contract for the supply of biometric voter registration kits to the lowest bidder.

The report also revealed that shortly thereafter the IEBC’s tender committee resigned, further compromising the process.

“No explanation was given to the public as to what led to this shirking of responsibility,” said Mwamu.

The report showed that after cancelling the tender  and then re-opening it following an executive order, the BVR kits did not arrive in the country until the beginning of November, two months after voter registration was scheduled to begin, giving voters only a month to register.

The lawyers proposed that procurement of registration equipment should be done in good time to ensure the entire process is carried out within the stipulated timelines.

It also pointed out that given the delays in nominations-related submissions and the decision to hold nominations on January 18, the last permissible day to do so, it was not surprising that the largest parties’ nominations processes were chaotic.

This was due to a decision by politicians to amend nomination rules and the timelines by which the parties were to submit names of their internal nominees from an initial period of three months to merely seven days before the actual primaries.

It was also impossible to resolve any nominations disputes in accordance with the legal time lines.

The commission did not also have time to clean up the register in readiness for the polls.

“IEBC’s late start had clear ramifications on election day as numerous observer reports noted that the electronic voter identification system largely failed across the country and its electronic results transmission system crashed,” read the report.

Reasons given for this failure, the committee notes, included lack of electricity supply at polling stations, unknown passwords with which to log into the system, servers lacking the capacity to handle huge volumes of incoming data, and uncharged batteries.

This meant that IEBC spent millions of dollars on a system that failed, yet this was  easily preventable.

As a way forward, LSK presented a series of recommendations to IEBC, key among them being the need to control campaign financing. It was also proposed that candidates running in next year’s General Elections should declare their wealth.

Another group, the Coalition on Accountable Party Financing, has in a previous report outlined how large sums of money whose sources are not disclosed was used in political campaigns.

“There is a need to control campaign finances as it has led to influencing outcome of elections through voter bribery. All candidates should also declare their wealth for the country to know how much they are worth,” said Mwamu.

The report by LSK also proposed that IEBC staff should adequately be trained on the use of technology deployed for elections within a specific timeframe. It also urged the commission to publish the voter register long before the elections date.

Reacting to the report findings, the IEBC said the  commission was putting in place measures to ensure past mistakes are not repeated.

IEBC Chief Executive Officer Ezra Chiloba said the commission wants to forestall any problems that arise during procurement stage.

“This time we want to get the process right. We will advertise the position of director of supply chain soon so that he or she addresses procurement issues well in advance,” said Chiloba.