Wednesday’s meeting between the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Acting Interior CS Fred Matiang’i and members of the Interior ministry together with representatives from Jubilee and NASA parties came as a huge relief after weeks of mounting speculation about the role of security officers to be deployed in next month’s elections.
Hopefully, everything was put on the table and solutions and clarifications being sought provided. The relevance of the meeting cannot be overemphasised especially after NASA claimed that the ruling Jubilee Party was laying the ground to rig the vote on August 8.
The Opposition’s fears might have been unfounded, but by equivocating and dithering, IEBC was giving them reason to cry foul later.
Yet it is that it took the IEBC so long to convene this meeting that worries.
Leaving the meeting this late unnecessarily heightened tension and risked eroding the confidence of the voters on the IEBC to conduct a free and fair election, thereby causing disaffection. And true to nature, the vacuum was quickly filled by the Executive arm of Government.
First, IEBC is not beholden to the Executive; the electoral process belongs to the people. Yet increasingly, it was beginning to look like an Executive function, with Dr Matiang’i not helping matters with his belligerent tone. Unfortunately, this has fuelled the perception that the Executive could lean on IEBC and thereby do its bidding.
Democracy is not just about elections. Citizens should be allowed to vote for people and political parties of their choice. But this is impossible unless people feel they can vote freely and that each vote will be counted. The ideals of democracy are defeated every time we have elections whose results are contested.
Lessons from the ill-fated 2007 elections are that for an election’s outcome to be seen to be free and fair, the referee must be beyond reproach. History should not be let to repeat itself.
More poignantly, memories of the contested 2013 presidential elections are fresh in the minds of Kenyans, many of whom still believe IEBC did not measure up to the task. It has a chance to prove them wrong.
It is the prayer of every Kenyan that IEBC will learn from its past mistakes and ensure the upcoming elections are judged free and fair.
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