IEBC signs MoU with media to ensure fair election coverage

Kenya Editors Guide President Zubeida Kananu, IEBC Acting Commission Secretary Moses Sunkuli and Kenya Union of Journalists Secretary General Eric Oduor shake hands after the signing of MoU. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the media fraternity to ensure free, fair, and credible elections come 2027.

The move, which is the second, comes 17 months towards next year’s general elections, unlike the last elections, which came a few days before the elections.

In the MoU, the two sides agreed to promote timely access to information on the entire electoral process, give access to journalists to all accredited polling centres and provide resources to journalists to ease information collection and reporting

The two sides also agreed to ensure the creation of an interface to work together to explain how results are transmitted from polling centres to Constituency and then national tallying centres.

Another key component of the agreement is to ensure accountability and fact- checking on both sides to ensure elections are transparent.

The commission’s Chairman, Erastus Ethekon, said there will be joint activities before, during, and after elections.

He called upon the media to be accurate and factual in their reporting before, during, and after elections to avoid disinformation and misinformation.

While urging the media to ensure an electoral code of conduct for candidates by providing information that will help in arresting candidates who go against the code, Ethekon said the commission will launch enhanced continuous voter registration (ECVR) on March 31 at Shimoni, Kwale County and will run for 30 days.

The two parties agreed to convene after one month to check on the progress of the MoU implementation.

Commissioner Anne Nderitu said so far, some 277,903 new voters have registered since last September when the exercise started.