The Star ­ Friday
Date: 02.12.2016
Page 23
Article size: 454 cm2
ColumnCM: 100.88
AVE: 177564.44
The last two chairmen of the electoral commissions — Kivuitu
and Hassan — which are supposed to be independent, fair and
impartial, made sure the agencies were nothing but the opposite
A FAIR AND IMPARTIAL IEBC CHAIR?
ggf hen President­elect Donald Trump was
1 K in the middle of his campaign, a political
Hf analyst in the US said Trump lied like a
V,i jf* thug, daring anyone to challenge him,
while Hillaty Clinton was more nuanced
in her lying, leaving room to explain away
Hf the lie, being the good lawyer she is.
The same can be said about the men who have been
That being the case, namely having two elections
back­to­back presided over by questionable
characters — Kivuitu with the ECK and Hassan with
the oxymoronically named "Independent" Electoral
and Boundaries Commission — there's nothing
"independent" about the electoral agencies.
The last two chairmen of the electoral commissions
at the helm of our electoral agencies since 2002, the
that are supposed to be independent, fair and impartial
made sure the agencies were anything but the opposite.
first and last time Kenya had what may be described
as a fair and transparent general election: In that year,
Many remember Kivuitu saying he didn't know who
won the elections in 2007, which was understandable
the then highly regarded and now late Samuel Kivuitu
presided over the Electoral Commission of Kenya, which
oversaw the euphoric elections of 2002 when Kenyans
given the level of denial he was in. Hassan knows who
overwhelmingly rejected Uhuru Kenyatta, now President.
He was then seen as President Daniel Moi project, and
the truth. That's neither here nor there.
the voters wanted none of it.
Fast­forward to the 2007 and 2013 general elections
and one cannot but conclude the Kivuitu who chaired the
ECK in 2007 goes down in history as having presided over
the most flagrant, in ­your­face rigging of an election and,
worse one who, like a thug, dared anyone to challenge
him.
For his part, when Issack Hassan was selected to chair
the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission
in 2011, he presided over questionable elections in 2013,
where the rigging may not have been as in your face
as was the case in 2007 but, like the smooth lying by
Clinton, giving herself plenty of room to wiggle away,
Hassan, too, pulled off serious rigging with plenty of
room to explain away much of the irregularities that took
won in 2013.
Maybe he, unlike Kivuitu, will in old age admit and tell
Right now, there's a task at hand as once again the
powers that be must appoint someone to head the IEBC.
Hassan was picked in part because he came from a
minority group not previously associated with corruption
only for him to eviscerate that notion.
Having run out of options, namely given we have
now established that individuals from the minority or
marginalised communities can be just as corruptible
as those from any of the major tribes, it's pointless to
eliminate someone merely on the basis they come from
a tribe representing one of the two major political rivals
in Kenya as the nominating panel and others erroneously
have done.
Rather, what's needed is finding a fair minded,
incorruptible and preferably an intellectual driven by
doing what's right for the country and not what's in their
place.
pocket or tribal interests.
To you Jubilee supporters, you have to be intellectually
honest and accept there was rigging in 2013, albeit
We have men and women like these in this country —
not too many for sure — but we have a few. The onus is on
those charged with the responsibility of finding one to do
so and with urgency for, surely, we don't want the IEBC
once again being led by those capable of smiling at us
while bludgeoning our feeble democracy to death, if not
creating forces that literally kill Kenyans.
much less so than there was in 2007 and to you ODM
supporters, you too have to be intellectually honest and
accept the fact that Raila Odinga could not have won in a
rerun with Uhuru, simply because Uhuru had a far more
mobilised voter base and superior logistics than him.
Ipsos Kenya ­ Acorn House,97 James Gichuru Road ­ Lavington ­ Nairobi ­ Kenya