Ethekon, IEBC team should win Kenyans' trust for 2027 contest

I am an avid supporter of Article 104 right, which enables citizens to recall their Member of Parliament. It is the unabridged version of exercising sovereignty provided in Article 1 of our Constitution.

Indeed, I prefer that process to the Kangaroo route by which directly elected representatives are impeached by a handful of representatives completely devoid of any views from the electors on whether the impeachee should go home.

The best example of these debacles is the case of Meru Governor Kawira Mwangaza.

I do not know whether what she was accused of was meritorious, but I have been around long enough to know that tales of abuse of office, even when told with much passion and vigour, often have no factual foundation. I also know of numerous her peers who have committed horrendous abuses and have never seen the door of the Senate.

Objective Meruans will tell you that, despite her many faults, mostly around people management, Kawira remained popular with many of her constituents.

I would have been more comfortable in a process that gave the electors the right to recall her, not a handful of her political opponents. That said, the ongoing circus at the IEBC, in which Kenyans are attempting to remove their MPs, should be dismissed summarily. My argument is purely pragmatic. For the last two and a half years, we have not had an electoral commission.

Political shenanigans in which every politician wanted their person in the IEBC denied us an opportunity to get a commission early enough to get critical jobs done, including the review of constituency boundaries.

Finally, Chairman Erastus Ethekon and his team have arrived at Anniversary Towers. They need time to gel, understand their mandates, and commence working on what will be another contentious “digit 7” election.

Remember 1997’s Moi Must Go election, 2007’s post-election violence and 2017’s annulled election? 2027 promises to follow this trend. Judge Kriegler told us that one of the reasons our elections are a mess is that we get our elections management body in office too close to an election.

Legal Penumbra

He suggested that IEBC commissioners be in office at least two years for an election. It is exactly two years to the 2027 election.

Recognising all that needs to be done, including the theever-contentiouss “procurement of election materials”, the last thing the commissioners need is to bother with the contentious process of recall.

One must remember that the recall mechanisms are in legal penumbra after the High Court declared certain recall clauses unconstitutional. It would take the next year, taking into account the inevitable legal challenges, for a recall election to happen. It will cost our broke selves significant cash, including huge lawyers’ fees, before we get there. And then after all that time, energy and money, when you give Kenyans the right to elect MPs afresh, they will once again vote on passion and give us the same crop of MPs they were unhappy with.

Have you seen who some of the most popular politicians would be if elections were held today? Cry this beloved Kenya.

So, forgive me if I do not join the bandwagon of recalling MPs. What Chairman Ethekon and his team need is regular, honest conversations with Kenyans on their plans, the kind that made us love Samuel Kivuitu until we hated him in another “digit 7” election.

The team needs to remember that elections are not just technical. Having been involved in Kenya’s election intimately since 1997, I can confidently say that technically, our elections are okay.

What we lack is trust in the people who oversee the elections. I suggest to Chairman Ethekon that he should spend less time with politicians and more with citizens to earn their trust. That requires one hundred per cent transparency, accountability and honesty. It involves being a team. We cannot have another Serena 4.

Having had the opportunity to work in similar contested spaces, I know that it's a failure of leadership. So. Let the team focus on the mandatory by-elections and the 2027 election.

They should not be distracted by recall elections. At this point, they are just a distracting sideshow, even if founded on the Constitution. Over to you.    

The writer is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya.a