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The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) needs every support from all Kenyans to pull off a fair, credible and transparent presidential election. A controversial outcome, as we have experienced before, will delegitimise the declared winner. Consequently, we will have about two years of a polarised country, as we normally do following a contested presidential election result. The 2022 presidential election results, other than the scale of polarisation, were no different from the 2013 and 2017. In fact, the grievances against the results were so deep that some political actors contemplated secession of some regions.
We have been here before. Presidential elections are announced, someone is declared a winner, the result is contested, the case is taken to the Supreme Court, a ruling is made, and someone is sworn in. The declared winner forms the government. About half the country is deeply aggrieved, but legally someone is in office. Yes, legality alone, however constitutional, doesn’t solve a moral problem where about half the country feels cheated.
We have under a year to get it right this time. The referee, that is, the IEBC, needs to stick to the rulebook. The technical details of the electoral process can only be handled by this referee.
However, we, voters, also need to do our bit. First, if we analyse politics with so much clarity about what it is that we want and whom it is that we think should fix it, but don’t show up to vote, it is completely unpatriotic. It is like expecting a bumper harvest that you never worked for. If you don’t wake up to go vote, surely hold your peace forever.
Second, we need to engage the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) at this point, when the institution can listen and adopt progressive ideas. For instance, we have a young generation that is super tech-savvy. It has the capacity, both in the know-how and the know-what, to generate several easy solutions to ensure the election process is fair, credible and transparent. They have the capacity to demonstrate easy verification procedures where doubts arise.
I understand additional efforts like this may not be within the legal framework of the electoral process. However, we also need to count the cost of regimes that suffer a legitimacy deficit. We have a moral obligation to beef up the legal efforts with moral authority for whoever wins the presidential election. I trust in the goodwill of young Kenyans with amazing integrity to offer the right solutions to our questionable electoral process.
Third, I have sat in forums where law enforcers are taken to task on what constitutes “enough evidence”, “strong evidence”, “sufficient evidence” to successfully prosecute a case in a court of law. In the line of electoral malpractice, I recently attended a convention in which law enforcers were struggling to convince a critical audience why high-level cases either take too long or are dropped for lack of “sufficient evidence”. What struck me most was that video evidence and recorded testimonies may not amount to “sufficient evidence.”
I believe we need to engage the IEBC so that raw footage from polling stations can make up for the “sufficient evidence.” In this world of technology where surveillance is strongly enhanced by cameras, I don’t get it that similar technology cannot be used to enhance the believability of the electoral process. For instance, if a camera is used to verify the number of people who actually got into a polling station and compare that with the total number of voters tallied, that would increase confidence in the results regardless of who wins. With modern technology, these are automatically generated results that take seconds to verify.
Lastly, we have had a lot of litigation around returning officers and political party agents. Something needs to be done to ensure that, this time around, returning officers don’t disappear and political party agents do their job at a polling and tallying centre. We also need to deal with claims of political party agents being bribed to favour one side. This Judas Iscariot-like appetite for money undermines the credibility of the process, as we have seen in past elections.
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The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) needs every support from all Kenyans to pull off a fair, credible and transparent presidential election. A controversial outcome, as we have experienced before, will delegitimise the declared winner. Consequently, we will have about two years of a polarised country, as we normally do following a contested presidential election result. The 2022 presidential election results, other than the scale of polarisation, were no different from the 2013 and 2017. In fact, the grievances against the results were so deep that some political actors contemplated secession of some regions.
We have been here before. Presidential elections are announced, someone is declared a winner, the result is contested, the case is taken to the Supreme Court, a ruling is made, and someone is sworn in. The declared winner forms the government. About half the country is deeply aggrieved, but legally someone is in office. Yes, legality alone, however constitutional, doesn’t solve a moral problem where about half the country feels cheated.
We have under a year to get it right this time. The referee, that is, the IEBC, needs to stick to the rulebook. The technical details of the electoral process can only be handled by this referee.
However, we, voters, also need to do our bit. First, if we analyse politics with so much clarity about what it is that we want and whom it is that we think should fix it, but don’t show up to vote, it is completely unpatriotic. It is like expecting a bumper harvest that you never worked for. If you don’t wake up to go vote, surely hold your peace forever.
Second, we need to engage the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) at this point, when the institution can listen and adopt progressive ideas. For instance, we have a young generation that is super tech-savvy. It has the capacity, both in the know-how and the know-what, to generate several easy solutions to ensure the election process is fair, credible and transparent. They have the capacity to demonstrate easy verification procedures where doubts arise.
I understand additional efforts like this may not be within the legal framework of the electoral process. However, we also need to count the cost of regimes that suffer a legitimacy deficit. We have a moral obligation to beef up the legal efforts with moral authority for whoever wins the presidential election. I trust in the goodwill of young Kenyans with amazing integrity to offer the right solutions to our questionable electoral process.
Third, I have sat in forums where law enforcers are taken to task on what constitutes “enough evidence”, “strong evidence”, “sufficient evidence” to successfully prosecute a case in a court of law. In the line of electoral malpractice, I recently attended a convention in which law enforcers were struggling to convince a critical audience why high-level cases either take too long or are dropped for lack of “sufficient evidence”. What struck me most was that video evidence and recorded testimonies may not amount to “sufficient evidence.”
I believe we need to engage the IEBC so that raw footage from polling stations can make up for the “sufficient evidence.” In this world of technology where surveillance is strongly enhanced by cameras, I don’t get it that similar technology cannot be used to enhance the believability of the electoral process. For instance, if a camera is used to verify the number of people who actually got into a polling station and compare that with the total number of voters tallied, that would increase confidence in the results regardless of who wins. With modern technology, these are automatically generated results that take seconds to verify.
Lastly, we have had a lot of litigation around returning officers and political party agents. Something needs to be done to ensure that, this time around, returning officers don’t disappear and political party agents do their job at a polling and tallying centre. We also need to deal with claims of political party agents being bribed to favour one side. This Judas Iscariot-like appetite for money undermines the credibility of the process, as we have seen in past elections.
By Elias Mokua