IEBC needs complimentary assistance in election management

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) needs complementary assistance and support in order to conduct a free and fair election come August 8, 2017.

Speaking to Radio Citizen, Desmond Boi, the Chief Executive Officer Right Elections, argues that IEBC also needs to continue conducting continuous civic education in order to sensitize people on the importance of exercising their democratic rights and ensure that the over 14.7 million registered voters in the country cast their votes.

“Advanced democracies have well institutionalized and long tradition of stable electoral politics. However, this is not the case with new democracies,” he noted.

“The maturity of a democracy can only be achieved through quality elections and these elections cannot be managed by IEBC without structured partnerships among electoral stakeholders alone.”

He adds that young democracies face the risk of collapsing since the electoral process is usually undermined by political leaders who want to impose their leadership on the electorate and dictate how the electoral body should conduct its business.

“Sustainability and continuity of electoral processes will always depend on how well other Election Management Bodies (EMBs) work hand-in-hand and support the IEBC in the case of Kenya,” he added.

He further noted that the process of voter registration and voter register verification and cleaning should be conducted by IEBC with the support of these Election Management Bodies, the two institutions working closely together.

“The use of current technology in registration of voters, verification of their details and the voting process are some of the roles that EMBs should play to ensure the credibility of the process.”

“Parties should also seek the services of IEBC and EMBs to conduct their primaries to stem rigging and instill confidence in their supporters.”

According to the law, upon request from a party, IEBC shall conduct the party primaries. However, this can prove to be an expensive affair for the electoral body.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party has already written to the IEBC requesting the commission to conduct the party’s nominations early next year.

“Using present technologies by EMBs cuts down election costs significantly since they (EMBs) deploy election technologies such as state of the art Biometric Voter Registers to capture details of the voters.”

He now says that the IEBC needs to conduct a massive voter education exercise to ensure the upcoming voter registration exercise slated for early next year is successful.

“It is only through voter education that majority of unregistered voters can turn up for registration to ensure a high voter turnout in the 2017 polls,” added Boi.

The 2017 General Election are taunted as Kenya’s fiercest with President Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, set to seek re-election and face the opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) that has expressed optimism in clinching the presidency.