The recall of the 2017 General Election data that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) recently uploaded on its website, which was riddled with typographical and factual errors, will not redeem its battered image.
Indeed, this has gone to reconfirm the IEBC as a bungling, error-prone organisation that, in its current form, has no business being anywhere near the critical function it’s entrusted with.
There have been numerous reports, including court rulings, that have exposed IEBC as an incompetent outfit that the country can no longer rely on to midwife the process through which Kenyans elect their leaders.
Indeed, if there is any serious effort to reform and strengthen governance, the broom must sweep out the mess at the IEBC.
After all, its credibility has been severely eroded and the pretences by chairman Wafula Chebukati and his two commissioners, who remained behind following the resignation of their colleagues, do not amount to much.
And there has been no substantive chief executive officer since the last one was bundled out.
IEBC has blamed massive data for its shambolic showing, promising to correct and re-upload the document.
It’s hardly surprising that this has sparked calls for its reorganisation before the 2022 General Election. The inadvertent exposure of its own incompetence has dented the integrity of the 2017 elections.
In the embarrassing data, the IEBC even disowned the people it declared as winners in some constituencies and further assigning them parties that did not sponsor them.
We couldn’t agree more with the leaders saying that any meaningful electoral reforms must begin with the IEBC’s total overhaul and reorganisation.
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