Wafula Chebukati and Hussein Marjan put to task over IEBC's preparedness

IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati and CEO Marjan Hussein speak during a cross-media interview at the Bomas of Kenya. [David Gichuru, Standard]

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has an arduous task of convincing Kenyans that it is adequately prepared to conduct the August 9 General Election. The commission must also allay fears of alleged planned poll interference, with only 24 days left to the D-day.  

This follows tough questions on election preparedness during a cross-media interview at the Bomas of Kenya, Nairobi, on Wednesday.

IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati and CEO Marjan Hussein Marjan were put to task over claims of a ploy to bungle the elections in favour of a particular candidate, the efficiency of the Kiems kits and alleged divisions within the commission among other issues.

The implementation of court orders and the decision to only rely on digital register as well as network coverage during the election, also took centre stage.

Mr Chebukati was quizzed on allegations by Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya that he had held meetings with Kenya Kwanza principal Moses Wetang’ula, which led to awarding of ballot printing tender to Inform lykos - a Greek company.

Mr Chebukati however dared anyone with evidence linking him to Mr Wetang’ula and the planned rigging of polls to present it.   

“I have never been to Moses Wetang’ula’s house and never have I ever sat down to discuss procurement with anyone. I look at it as profiling, since we both come from Bungoma. It’s quite unfortunate that at this point in time you have people who are hell-bent on trying to profile the commission’s staff for purposes we don’t understand, and this should stop.

“Our staff are now afraid due to the profiling. Let us not forget that it was during a time like this that one of our staffers Chris Msando was killed in the last election,” said Mr Chebukati.  

However, the IEBC chair admitted that there had been attempts of poll interference from actors within and outside government.

“…we have had challenges when some multi-agency team wanted us to sit in it but we refused, financial challenges where we are starved of funds, which have had consequences on our operations, and also donors who have pulled out but we have stood our ground and here we are,” he said.

Mr Marjan was also hard pressed to explain why they settled on Smartmatic International company to supply 10,000 Kiems kits, despite reports that the gadgets failed during elections in other countries like Uganda, Venezuela and the Philippines.

IEBC CEO Marjan Hussein Marjan. [David Gichuru, Standard]

“Those issues did not come up during our investigation. They might be allegations sourced from the internet and might not be necessarily true. As a commission, we were not aware of these issues when we awarded the tender. I cannot speak on behalf of the company. The question should now be put to the company because it had not come to our attention,” he said.

Yesterday, Smartmatic International company – responding to media queries - refuted the integrity concerns raised against its handling of previous elections in different countries.

“Elections are prone to controversies. This is true in Kenya, the United States, France and basically everywhere in the world. It is therefore extremely important that people who bear the responsibility of forming a public opinion to be on the alert for biased reporting, click bait articles and fake news,” said Samira Saba, the company’s Head of Communications.

The “botched” transmission of results from polling centres in 2017 and the issue of non-gazetted polling centres that ended up transmitting results also came back to haunt IEBC.

“In this year’s elections, where it’s not possible to transmit the results at the polling centres, then the kits can be transferred to the gazetted tallying centres, where they will be transmitted. We have made efforts to ensure that all polling and tallying centres are gazetted,” said Mr Marjan.

Mr Chebukati was further asked about the involvement of Telcos in the elections and the measures they have put in place to avert network failure and results altering.

“IEBC cannot do elections on its own, and that’s why we brought on board mobile network operators. Only one SD card will be used per polling centre, and it will be encrypted to ensure safety. Kiems kits are also only able to transmit form 34A and not any other documents. It can only transmit once,” he said.

IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati. [David Gichuru, Standard]

The duo appeared to be reading from different scripts when it came to the issue of clearing former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko to run for the Mombasa governor seat.

On Wednesday, the High Court gave a green light for Sonko to contest and ordered IEBC to include him on the ballot.

Mr Chebukati said given the time constraints, the commission would not appeal the court ruling but implement the orders.

Mr Marjan said IEBC would wait for the matter to be conclusively addressed by the courts before they can proceed. 

“We must finish printing the ballot papers because we are already out of time. We shall not be challenging the ruling. We would like to continue printing ballot papers so we can give Kenyans a credible election,” said the IEBC chair.

Mr Marjan said: “Sonko’s case is still ongoing at the Supreme Court, and it’s important that we first wait and then make a decision. As a commission, we have not made a decision to appeal Sonko’s case or not, but we will wait and not jump the gun.”

The commission also had a hard time defending itself against claims of bias in the clearance of especially independent candidates and said the cases were still in court.