Minority groups require precedence, candidate tells IEBC panel

IEBC commissioner candidate Juliana Cherera when she appeared before the selection panel at KICC, Nairobi. [David Njaaga, Standard]

Juliana Cherera, an applicant of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commissioner position will prioritize participation of minority groups during elections, should she succeed.

Cherera told the IEBC selection panel that top of her strategy will be to ensure inclusiveness during the election period.

“We will quickly do a crash program…we will give the team 100 days to perform their duties. We will be very targeted to these teams and where they are. We will move to where they are, e.g if its mama mboga, we’ll move to the market and register them from there,” she said, responding to a question on how to handle minority groups.

The applicant, who has served as an accounting officer at the Executive, was also taken to task on the matter of voter registration.

Cherera told panelists that IEBC should adopt a more seamless process of monitoring deaths of registered voters, through help from the civil registrar, to wade off questions and criticism every election cycle.

“The office that registers deaths should be inter-connected electronically with the IEBC so that when a death has occurred, the commission will get an alert immediately and scrap them from the voter register,” she said.

She questioned the nature of elections in Kenya, noting its violent flare-ups- adding that that was her turning point and what catapulted her into service.

“In the next elections, I look at it in terms of are we making Kenya a better place to live, are we improving the living conditions of our people?” Cherera posed.

Juliana Cherera, a former teacher was the second interviewee to face the selection panel on day six of the hunt, after Joseph Kang’ethe. Julius Rotich will be interviewed from 2 pm.

A seven-member panel is interviewing the 35 candidates shortlisted for the commissioner position, until July 22.

The panel is chaired by Dr Elizabeth Muli.