Take claims of poll rigging seriously

Many questions have been raised about the conduct of the Independence Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) after the recently concluded by-elections in Kericho and Malindi.

Claims of rigging and bribing voters to favour certain candidates have been raised and should be probed by the electoral body if Kenyans are to trust it.

In the Kericho by-election, Kanu leaders claimed that their candidate was denied an obvious victory but said they would not contest the results in court.

This shows that people may be losing faith in the electoral body and our courts. This is happening when the 2017 polls are just around the corner.

Apart from the Kericho and Malindi cases, the ‘Chickengate’ scandal has dealt IEBC a big blow.

We need to eliminate bad leaders and retain good ones in the Government. The first way to do this is by registering as a voter. The second one is having an electoral body with a high level of reputation.

We should be careful with leaders who may be bent on taking us down the 2007-2008 path.