Time flies with great content! Renew in to keep enjoying all our premium content.
Pitfalls to address in reconstitution of IEBC
Former IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati (left) hands President William Ruto and his running mate, former Vice President Rigathi Gachagua, with their IEBC certificate at Bomas of Kenya on June 4, 2022.
The ongoing reconstitution of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) brings hope in the quest for recalibrating the agency’s capacity to steer the 2027 General Election.
Kenya’s electoral management remains fraught with systemic challenges, undermining public trust in election outcomes since independence.
Despite frequent reforms, including establishing the IEBC in 2011, persistent issues such as funding shortfalls, governance flaws and political polarisation, continue to erode the agency’s credibility.
The 2022 presidential election disputes and subsequent National Dialogue Committee (Nadco) report underscored the urgency of reconstituting the IEBC to enhance professionalism and integrity.
Key interventions include ensuring continuity in institutional memory, securing adequate funding, clarifying governance roles, empowering the IEBC to adjudicate disputes, and fostering cohesion among commissioners.
While the ongoing interviews for the IEBC chairperson restore hope for electoral justice, stalled implementation of critical elections activities, including boundary reviews and by-elections, threaten the preparedness for the 2027 elections.
The following issues remain pertinent in influencing the poll agency’s credibility;
Institutional memory and capacity deficits: Simultaneous resignations of commissioners and delayed appointments disrupt institutional continuity. New appointees will lack sufficient time to gain experience given the magnitude of unimplemented activities and scarcity of time, weakening their ability to navigate complex electoral processes.
Retraining and job-skilling will take time off the much-needed time to fast track the polls agency's activities.
Additionally, the absence of a continuing commissioner due to the nonexistence of staggered commissioners’ tenure of service exacerbates knowledge gaps, leaving no senior commissioners to mentor successors.
Chronic underfunding and fiscal mismanagement: The IEBC’s budget allocations consistently fall short of requests. Chronic underfunding forces reliance on ad-hoc supplementary budgets, delaying procurement and voter outreach.
Misprioritised expenditures, particularly cyclical technology procurement, inflate costs. Poor tendering processes and pending bills further strain fiscal integrity, undermining Parliament’s willingness to increase the agency’s allocations.
Structural governance flaws: Ambiguities in the IEBC Act create power struggles between commissioners, the chairperson, and the secretariat. The 2022 presidential tally dispute highlighted unclear roles, with the chairperson unilaterally announcing results despite objections.
A lack of a board charter perpetuates conflicts, as seen in the Chiloba-Chebukati rivalry, which paralysed procurement decisions. The IEBC Bill 2024 fails to address these gaps, leaving governance frameworks vulnerable to politicisation.
Limited authority in electoral dispute resolution: The IEBC lacks enforcement powers, acting only as a conduit to forward misconduct complaints to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP).
Attempts to establish internal dispute mechanisms, like the 2017 code of conduct committee, were deemed unconstitutional. This limitation enables state actors such as partisan Cabinet Secretaries to influence elections without accountability, fuelling post-election disputes.
Politicalpolarisation: Commissioners often prioritise loyalties to appointing entities over institutional mandates, fostering ethnic and political divisions.
The 2017 and 2022 elections saw commissioners split along partisan lines, delaying consensus on presidential results. Such polarization cascades to field staff, compromising polling stations’ integrity.
The Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling on emphasising grassroots accuracy of tallying election results remains pivotal in cushioning divisions among the commissioners in collating presidential tallies across the 290 constituencies.
Kenya’s electoral reforms have yet to deliver a truly independent and efficient IEBC. Gaps in institutional memory due to frequent resignation of commissioners, structural weaknesses, chronic underfunding, and politicisation hinder its capacity to conduct credible polls.
Without urgent interventions, the 2027 elections risk repeating cycles of disputes and violence. Reconstituting the IEBC demands reforms to restore public confidence and operational efficacy.
Stephen Nduvi is a Governance consultant & public policy analyst
