Provide evidence that foreigners will meddle with polls if they fund IEBC

As 2021 winds up and with the August 2022 elections beckoning, the various bodies mandated to ensure smooth elections and transition are focusing on preparedness. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), which is required to conduct elections impartially, is at the top of the list of these bodies. Others include the Judiciary, Parliament, police, ODPP, ministries of the Treasury, ICT and Interior ministries and the national Executive.

Due to our peculiar history of elections malpractice and rights violations, other government bodies such as the National Cohesion and Integration Commission and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights will be monitoring hate speech, discrimination and human rights violations during the campaigns, primaries and elections. Furthermore, the media and civil society will also play their respective roles to ensure that the people are informed of the policies being pushed by the political parties and candidates. In addition, they will elucidate the issues affecting Kenyans and support the institutional processes of a democratic election by providing civic education, identifying problems and gaps, et cetera.

In short, elections are an all-hands-on-deck affair. In good faith and following the Constitution, all stakeholders are expected to play their roles to ensure the people's will is respected. Historical data suggests that the way elections are conducted hold the key to the country's growth trajectory. 2007 and 2017 illustrate how uncertainty, violence and opaque processes can thwart economic growth, devastate lives and hurt national unity.

Four years ago, the presidential election results were nullified by the Supreme Court, the main opposition party boycotted the subsequent repeat elections, some counties did not participate in the repeat poll and the state monopoly of violence was weaponised against areas perceived as opposition strongholds leading to injury, deaths and sexual violence. The economy suffered, and there was a challenge to the regime's legitimacy. Later, the two protagonists declared a truce (handshake) that restored normalcy. However, the underlying issues were never addressed, especially those that made Kenyans feel alienated from the government.

After the 2007 and 2017 experiences, you would expect that we would have come up with concrete laws, policies, and attitude shifts that would protect the sanctity of elections. However, this year, there have been instances where very vital actors in the polls have said or done things that jeopardise their duty to be impartial. Moreover, the National Treasury has cut the IEBC's budget from Sh40.9 billion to Sh26.5 billion in a situation where the IEBC must contend with registering millions of new voters and catering for logistics of conducting an election involving millions more voters. In a strange twist of events, the government has simultaneously banned foreign funding to the IEBC to "stem foreign interference in our elections".

Previously, IEBC benefited from funding from bodies such as the United Nations Development Project and foreign missions that facilitated the commission's staff training, civic education and mass voter registration. One thus wonders how this purported interference has previously manifested. As a bare minimum, for this directive to meet legal muster, the government must show how foreign funding has jeopardised or might likely jeopardise IEBC's impartiality. For example, has foreign funding ever caused IEBC to campaign for or favour a particular party, candidate or ideology to the detriment of another? We seem to be okay with foreign financing of famine relief, education and support for criminal justice actors. Strangely, we draw the line when the funding supports a more empowered electorate and fairer elections.