IEBC tightens election rules with tough penalties for misconduct

When chaos erupted at the Bomas auditorium during the 2022 General Election forcing the late IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati to be whisked away by security officers. [File, Standard] The recently installed Independent Electoral Commissioners will conduct by-elections under a new law, which criminalises any collusion between an election official and a candidate and sets a five-year jail term or a Sh2 million fine. Parliament on Thursday passed the Election Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2024, which sets out new tough measures to regulate the conduct of elections by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to plug loopholes in the country's election laws. IEBC commissioners and members of staff who collude with any political party or candidate for purposes of giving an undue advantage during the 2027 and subsequent elections now face a 5-year jail term and a Sh2 million fine. Under the law, the same fate also awaits election officials who unreasonably delay declaring election results or knowingly alter declared election results. The Bill, which has received approval from both the Senate and the National Assembly, is sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot and is seen as a step forward in regulating what has been billed as a hotly contested poll pitting a united opposition determined to relegate William Ruto to a one-term presidency against the Head of State's fervent efforts to secure a second term in office. As soon as it gets presidential assent, the Bill will provide the confines within which the 2027 elections will be held, with the critical players being the Democracy for the Citizens Party (DCP) leader Rigathi Gachagua, People's Liberation Party leader Martha Karua, United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) Fred Matiang'i, and DAP-K's Eugene Wamalwa in one corner, facing off against incumbent President Ruto, who recently secured the backing of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga. "It shall be an offence for staff of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to conduct or hold an election in an ungazetted polling station. ''It is an offence for staff of the IEBC who unreasonably delay declaring election results or knowingly alter declared election results," reads the Bill in part. Any person who wilfully counts any ballot paper as being cast for any candidate which they know or believe was not validly cast for that candidate, interferes with a voter in the casting of their vote in secret, or wilfully prevents any person from voting at the polling station at which they know such person is entitled to vote will also be held liable under the new Bill. IEBC commissioners and staff who make, in any record, return, or other document which they are required to keep or make under such written law, an entry which they know to be false, or permit any person whom they know is able to read or write to vote in the manner provided for persons unable to read or write, they will be answerable under this law. Those aware of such instances but who fail to report to the Commission or any other relevant authority will also be held liable under the Act. Notably, the Election Offences Bill emanates from recommendations put forward by the National Dialogue Committee - a bipartisan team constituted after the August 9, 2022, elections, which were considered tumultuous and characterised by political tensions.

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