Here we were, thinking the 2022 election was over, and we would get back to our daily hustles.
But no, there are unanswered questions on the Holy Grail we call the presidency. On one side, Raila Odinga, adjudged the losing candidate, tells us the leadership of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has a potential case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on account of its apparent “blunder and plunder” of the presidential vote count.
On the other William Ruto, adjudged the winning candidate, reveals a nefarious plot involving the kidnapping and murder of the IEBC leadership. Both guys promise to reveal more in the fullness of time.Forget House of Cards or Designated Survivor, we are in Game of Thrones territory with a neat pinch of Blacklist style imponderables and inconceivables. The only surprise is that our peerless creatives haven’t graduated from telenovela-style local productions to a Netflix series on the Politricks that is Kenya. It would be a best-viewer not just here, but everywhere. Indeed, if Kenya’s media creatively woke up, this would be the true big-ticket to market dominance.available to Kenyans.
In other words, let’s understand the IEBC view on the shenanigans that pervaded a 2022 election that was marked off in the global space as “well done”. For local understanding, these shenanigans might walk us through the voter experience. Because the whole purpose of the election is voters. In a voter and citizen-centric lens, the votes are a result, not a cause of the voter-centric experience. Since we only have the “happy-clappy” self-evaluation report rather than the exit report, is there anything we might learn? Let’s review a couple of its highlights as we watch 2027 already in play.
To begin, the evaluation does not speak to the future digital election preferred by one side, or the analogue one that the other side demands. This is escapist and survivalist. Our election design is such that its manual part (pre-numbered ballot papers and registered agents) is still a place to be rigged before we get to the electronic part (tallying and web portals). The tragedy in the Supreme Court’s rhetorical thinking was its inability to contemplate this possibility in a really close election.
This is why the most interesting part of the self-congratulatory IEBC’s evaluation is a sub-section called Election Logistics. Here’s a sample of what they said: “There was a mix-up in Form 34As in ballot paper packaging. “Packaging and distribution of materials were characterised by piecemeal distribution…at very odd hours. There were instances of mixed polling station labelling. The binding of ballot papers and counterfoils was loose making them get off the counterfoil readily, hence increasing the likelihood of losing the counterfoils. On the distribution of materials…some…were either missing or inadequate”. Clearly, the rubber struggled to meet the road. This is not necessarily a comment on the final result, but it is on IEBC’s general competence.
