With bungled 2017 polls still fresh, Wafula Chebukati is in for yet another test

IEBC  Chairman Wafula Chebukati at Bomas of Kenya during the clearance of Presidential candidates. [Samson Wire, Standard].

For the next two months, few Kenyans will be under as much scrutiny as Wafula Chebukati, the chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

Stained by the nullified 2017 presidential election, the IEBC boss must deal  with constant concerns of the four presidential candidates seeking to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The two leading contenders – William Ruto and Raila Odinga – are asking whether the IEBC is prepared to handle the August 9 polls, seeking guarantees of a credible process. And so are civil society groups.

They have raised issues on credibility of the voters register and status of the election technology supposed to transmit results. They have been concerned that IEBC has been running down the clock, leaping towards statutory deadlines at the last minute.

The recent simulation of transmission of election results, done on the deadline for the test and marred by delays, puts Chebukati and his commission in sharp focus.

Besides avoiding a repeat of 2017, the IEBC chair will hope to prevent a recurrence of the 2007 post-election violence – to which the then commission somewhat contributed – and also escape the disgrace that accompanied his predecessors’ exit.

The circumstances that led to his appointment – an opposition demonstrating to have the Issack Hassan-led commission kicked out – must linger in his mind. Chebukati has witnessed his fair share of such demonstrations and has stayed put in the face of mounting pressure to have him ousted.

Together with commissioners Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu, Chebukati has survived torrents that have swept four of his previous commissioners after the 2017 polls. No amount of opposition – from within and outside his commission – has cowed him into resigning.

Chebukati has been firm throughout the five years he has been in office, a quality that was recently on display as he disqualified presidential hopefuls, some of whom were hostile, for lacking the necessary documentation. But he has also projected an air of reticence, sometimes not confronting issues head-on. Though Chebukati has offered assurances that everything was in order at the IEBC in recent press briefings, he has been heavier on promises of a later response to queries raised.

“We shall look for an opportunity to call all candidates for a meeting where we can ventilate some of these issues,” Chebukati responded after Raila raised queries over IEBC’s preparedness on Sunday.

Six-year stint

Even with less than a year left on his six-year stint, the reemergence of calls to have him resign are not an impossibility. Raila has recently said Chebukati, the referee of this year’s election, should be watched keenly as he is “fond of awarding dubious penalties”.

Ruto has said he trusts Chebukati and his colleagues to deliver credible polls, even as he alleged plans to rig the elections.

Different stakeholders have advised the commission on how to avoid pitfalls in previous presidential elections. The underlying message, from civil society and other political players, has been need for openness.

Though the IEBC chair has said several times that IEBC maintains an “open-door policy”, the commission, and Chebukati in particular, is no stranger to claims of stonewalling.

In a recent letter to IEBC chair, 10 civil society organisations, under the banner of Angaza Movement, asked the polls agency to offer “clear communication” on issues it had raised over the IEBC’s preparedness.

The media has also found the task of reaching Chebukati rather arduous, with phone calls and text messages to him to ask about critical matters raised often going unanswered.

Marcus Ageng’a, the programmes coordinator at the Elections Observers Group (Elog), said IEBC, by keeping to itself, runs the risk of its story being told by politicians.

“Chebukati should mainstream and step up public communication because elections are people-centred and people-oriented,” he said, suggesting that doing so would enhance public confidence and get rid of the “mystery shrouding the IEBC”.

“We will seek to verify that they are ready and are hopeful that they will share information on their preparedness. We need to tell our people that the IEBC has their house in order. If we tell our people that they have their house in order then they will be confident that the elections will be free and fair,” Prof Makau Mutua, Raila’s campaign secretariat spokesperson, said in an interview.

A lawyer, Chebukati was tasked with shepherding a new commission in 2017. His team came into office in January 2017 at the height of opposition’s distrust in electoral agencies.

The previous Hassan-led commission had been virtually hounded out of office by the opposition and civil society groups who accused it of allegedly bungling the 2013 presidential election.

The credibility of the commission was dented by the Chicken Gate scandal, a mega corruption scheme through which officials from the IEBC – then the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) – earned kickbacks to influence tender awards to a British printing firm.

After four years of opposition agitation, the Hassan-led group agreed to resign but negotiated a hefty send-off package on their way out.

The late Samuel Kivuitu and the Electoral Commission of Kenya he chaired also left in the wake of the disputed 2007 elections, whose results Kivuitu admitted to having been “cooked”.

Haunted by ghosts

Such were the ghosts that haunted the office Chebukati took over five years ago. And barely months after the commission embarked on its job, differences, partly occasioned by political prejudices and supremacy wars, emerged. There were claims that a section of the IEBC favoured Uhuru and the other was rooting for Raila.

In the end, the result was a bungled election and admissions from former commissioners, like Roselyn Akombe, that the IEBC was incapacitated to conduct credible polls.

The IEBC chair walks into his last General Election as IEBC chair – his term expires in January next year – a legacy-shaping election that lends him a chance to redeem himself and the commission he leads. In his books, the repeat election of 2017 served that purpose.

The IEBC chair has told whoever cares to listen that the commission got it right within a 30-day time-frame, implementing the directives the David Maraga-led Supreme Court issued when nullifying Uhuru’s win.

But the 2017 repeat election was tainted by Raila’s boycott, which resulted in a 39 per cent turnout to take away its legitimacy. The Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition party presidential candidate sat out the election as he could not trust Chebukati and his team to oversee a credible process.

If Johann Kriegler’s recommendations on the timelines to be followed when setting up the electoral agency – two years before the polls – are anything to go by, then Chebukati and his team may have a case for their performance in 2017.

Chebukati has been in office for the last five years and observers have said he has had sufficient time to prepare for this year’s contest, the perennial budgetary constraints notwithstanding.