Good riddance IEBC, what next?

Last year, I bumped into one of the IEBC commissioners. She asked me what I thought about their tenure of office in the face of calls for their removal. Because the meeting was unplanned and being a gentleman, and she a seemingly nice wife out shopping with her husband, I found the question rather tricky at first.

Nonetheless, I remember telling her that when one side protests stridently against the choice of a referee in a football match before the start, chances are the outcome will be contested on the basis of independence and fairness in terms of judgement with regard to doling out of free kicks, throw-ins, yellow and red cards, as well as penalties from the 12-yard line.

Without pricking her pride, I told her that judging by the way they had handled the 2013 elections and the numerous comments their boss had made about Raila Odinga, especially as a perennial loser and whiner par excellence, it is was most unlikely that they would conduct the 2017 General Election.

I explained to her that their situation was not helped by the attacks from Jubilee attack hounds like Majority Leader Aden Duale.

The question I did not want to venture onto was why President Uhuru Kenya and his deputy William Ruto had initially frowned at calls for the disbandment of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission's senior management.

If you recall, they argued that they swore to protect the Constitution and their removal would have to follow a legal process, not a political one.

Well, the gracious lady appeared unperturbed and we went our separate ways.

Yesterday the news broke that the IEBC commissioners had resigned to their fate but not before extracting three main guarantees from the relevant joint House Committee: that they would be paid their salaries right up to the time their current term will end, which is November next year; that they remain immune to any trial either for Chickengate eating claims in London or procurement and other matters of negligence in regard to the mess in the 2013 elections; and like secondary school students, they wanted to leave with good leaving certificates that say they were dignified patriots who served their county with honour and diligence.

Today as they slowly pack their bags, the question remains: What is it that deluded them so much that they were untouchable?

Who gave them the guarantee that they were not alone and that there was a card emblazoned ‘tyranny of numbers’ that would be swung their way? We may never know the answer to this, but one thing is certain; the sweeter and more sensational story is still yet to be gleaned from the vaults of Anniversary Towers.

As late as last week, as Jubilee appeared to now speak on the same wavelength with the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy, the electoral boss, who had refused to heed the counsel of friends to smell the coffee and take a walk, was still belligerent.

He seemed to forget that as unpopular in some quarters as the CORD protests were, they had somehow succeeded in reducing the IEBC team to a rabbit running away from blinding car headlights at night!

The end of the road for the Ahmed Issack Hassan team was hastened by the entry of the police with their teargas at the prompting of Internal Security Cabinet Secretary Joseph Ole Nkaissery. This is the CS whose prescription notes for every problem he encounters is 'dawa ya moto ni moto' or simply put, 'an eye for an eye shall only make our enemies blind and ourselves stronger visually'.

The exit of the IEBC top cream, however, leaves us with several questions whose answers have a bearing on the believability of the results of next year’s election.

The first is whether they will go, but the secretariat remains intact and whether this is good for election planning or is an opportunity for connivance and manipulation by external forces.

Secondly, there is the question of how the new team will be picked and how this will impact on the confidence levels of both the incumbent and Opposition sides in the electoral body. If we get it wrong here, then we may just regret the action taken against Mr Hassan’s team.

There is also the third question on what impact this portends for the next team at the helm of the electoral body, since they all seem to suffer the same fate.

In fact, after the low moments of Samuel Kivuitu and now that Mr Hassan has been hounded to the woods, it would be interesting to see the calibre of people who will apply for this high-voltage job, where each side you touch is a live wire.

Finally, shall we achieve a level political playing field when the incumbents use State machinery and resources to hold onto power while asking the Opposition to show what ‘development’ they have brought about as if they too were co-rulers of the country.

In fact, one can go further and ask how much, short of appointing angels to IEBC, trust will the election body build when every of their actions is looked at and understood from the prism of tribe and narrow party interests?