Hope of better days with IEBC in control of campaign funding now

IEBC clerks take fingerprints of members of the public as they register them as voters at the IEBC's GPO centre, Nairobi. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

This week’s decision by the High Court giving the IEBC full powers on determination of spending limits for political campaigns is a milestone in taming the role of money in Kenya’s politics.

The issue before the court was straightforward. The Constitution in Article 88(4) allocates the responsibility of regulating election campaign financing to the IEBC. However, when Parliament passed the Election Campaign Financing Act in 2013, Section 29(1) required that before IEBC gazettes any regulations on the matter, they would need parliamentary approval.