IEBC dismissals raise serious queries about electoral agency

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission CEO Ezra Chiloba and chairman Wafula Chebukati  photo:courtesy

The abrupt departure of a second high-ranking Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officer is enough cause for worry. Lawi Aura was relieved of his duties over “delayed sourcing of ballot papers".

This follows the suspension, last Friday, of ICT Director James Muhati over claims he had failed to co-operate in an internal audit process.

This leaves a lot of questions unanswered; the foremost being: Is IEBC a divided house where top ranking officials serve the interests of unknown people? Why has it taken so long for IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati to realise that most things could not be working according to plan?

We cannot, however, begrudge IEBC the right to take disciplinary action against any errant member. It is what action they take to assuage growing fears among Kenyans; that it is setting itself up for failure, even as the August elections draw closer that worries.

There are reports of behind-the-scenes rifts between commissioners and the secretariat over the tender for the printing of ballot papers. That should not be the case for, if it does not point to corruption, it is vested interests that are at play here, yet IEBC must be seen to be neutral.

History is replete with tough lessons from a botched electoral process. Most succinctly, events following the contested presidential results in the 2007 General Election (where 1,300 people were killed and hundreds of thousands others were displaced) confirm that a mismanaged electoral process leads to death, injury, destruction and risks tearing a country apart.

Disturbingly, we know what ought to be done to avoid such an eventuality, but seem less bothered. Needless to say, all parties in an electoral contest must have confidence in the process if the outcome is to be believed and accepted.

A contested election says as much about the referee as the contestants. And so whatever IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati and Ezra Chiloba, the CEO, do, they ought to put the interests of the country at the centre of it all.