Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) truce could be short-lived

Drama has characterised the Opposition-led push for minimum electoral reforms ahead of the 2017 General Election. In May, at the height of the protests, police, in dramatic scenes, lobbed tear-gas canisters at Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) leaders Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang'ula, who were leading their supporters to Anniversary Towers in a bid to eject the already heavily discredited Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioners out of office.

The protesters also presented security forces with the opportunity to deploy and test their menacing, newly-acquired water cannon machines. Months on, at the conclusion of the reform process, the drama migrated from the streets of the capital to the floor of the august House, which was turned into a theatre of a different kind of agitation.

Along the way, the players also dramatically changed.To use an analogy, the reform process evolved more like a river; starting small high up the mountains before being joined on its long journey downstream by several tributaries, and turning into an unstoppable juggernaut towards its end.

Mr Odinga and his CORD co-principals, Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang'ula were the original face of this agitation. The clerics, their job pretty much cut out for them, jumped onto the bandwagon.

Their task was to dissuade the Opposition from brinkmanship and urge the ruling Jubilee Coalition to come to the dialogue table.For once the clergy, notorious for their flip-flopping on issues of national interest, appeared to have correctly gauged the public mood.

Their refrain was that the country was better off without the current IEBC commissioners; that it would be reckless and a recipe for disaster to allow the Issack Hassan-led team to conduct the 2017 General Election. It worked.This led to the thawing in tensions between Jubilee and CORD and gave birth to the select committee that midwifed the reforms.

In the initial phase the process was marred by episodes of caginess and mutual suspicion. But these came to pass.Jubilee and CORD have in their ranks some of the most polarising and vexing political talking heads. It’s quite a relief, therefore, to see them set aside parochial differences for the greater good.

The electoral process was now like the proverbial river gathering everything on its way as it oozed downstream.Mr Odinga and President Kenyatta publicly celebrated the outcome of the report of the select committee. Both appeared determined, at least from their speeches, that the country must never again relapse into election-related violence.

Two important lessons can be drawn from this new-found camaraderie.Firstly, brinkmanship, the Opposition’s preferred modus operandi for extracting outcomes isn’t necessarily the only tool available for pursuing political objectives.

Secondly, Jubilee and CORD can actually have mutual political concerns as exemplified by the broad consensus on the report of the select committee, including the decision to send home the discredited IEBC commissioners.

But drama returned, underscoring just how prone to theatrics the reform process had become.The hunter became the hunted.MPs who had jumped onto the reform train as it snaked its way towards its destination discovered rather belatedly and to their horror that they could themselves become victims of the reforms through a clause that prohibited party –hopping. In typical fashion, as has happened each time their interests are threatened, the MPs used the floor of the House to gang up against their party leaders, President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, who endorsed the reforms as a package.

Mr Odinga had gone a step further and urged his party members in the National Assembly to adopt the report “without altering a comma or a full stop”. MPs who support party hopping argue that the law as envisaged is punitive and an attempt to take away their right of association as enshrined in the Constitution.

They assert that it lays the ground for the rise of tin gods as epitomised by the one-party system.However, those against party hopping defend the proposed law saying it would enforce party discipline and end the culture of political promiscuity. This lot is in the minority.

MPs, as usual, got their way.

The yet-to-be launched Jubilee Party was banking on this law to cushion itself from crushing nominations fallout ahead of the General Election; a prayer CORD may silently share with the ruling coalition.
Consequently, the leadership of the two parties will have to go back to the drawing board if they hope to stem inevitable pre-election nominations induced exodus.

Meanwhile, some CORD MPs are already irritable the opposition gave away too much by handing President Uhuru Kenyatta what they call a carte blanche to pick seven of eleven envisaged commissioners of the new-look electoral agency.

It’s important that even the slightest doubt on the impartiality of the process of picking the new commissioners be dealt with conclusively. These muted voices of dissent must be amplified.

Because, in my view, they could very well lay the ground on which the yet-to-be-appointed IEBC commissioners will be used to discredit the outcome of 2017 presidential election.