Chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Erastus Edung Ethekon./FILE
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) regrets that printing of ballot papers can not be done locally.
IEBC says printing ballot papers in the country will not only save money and time due to logistics, but will also help in building local capacity.
However, IEBC says, it has not been able to contract a local printer or even use a government printer due to a lack of trust.
“The day we will call ourselves as Kenyans and rethink that we can print the ballots at home or even government printer, then that day we will celebrate. But as things stand, we have a trust deficit,” IBC Chairman Erastus Ethekon says.
Ethekon said due to mistrust, Kenyan ballot papers have more security features than even our currency, thus making it more expensive than even printing paper money.
“One ballot carries more than 11 security features. That's what trust deficit brings to us,” Ethekon told MPs on Thursday. In 2022, IEBC said it costs about Sh23 to print one ballot paper.
This meant that Kenya spent about Sh3.4 billion in the last election to print over 120 million ballot papers for the six electoral seats.
The IEBC boss, who was accompanied by his commissioners and CEO Marjan Hussein, was appearing before the National Assembly’s Constitution Implementation Oversight Committee (CIOC).
The MPs had summoned the elections agency to brief them on their preparedness ahead of the 2027 elections and address the issues of waning public confidence in the poll agency.
CIOC Chairman Caroli Omondi said, “We have had a very good consultative meeting with IEBC on various issues, key among them the update on the forthcoming by-elections. We are satisfied with the brief from IEBC as regards those preparations.”
“We have also agreed with IEBC to prepare a roadmap as we head to the 2027 elections, among them legislative needs on about 13 laws. Of immediate interest is that IEBC will launch continuous voter registration tomorrow,” Omondi said.
The commission chiefs told MPs that they are targeting registration of about 6.3 million new voters, an exercise which is likely to take the number of registered voters to over 28 million.
“We are relying on data from the National Registration Bureau (NRB), unlike in the past, where we relied on the national census by the KNBS. Guided by that data, we are projecting that this number of Kenyans will have attained 18 by then. We hope as they churn IDs, we are registering them as voters,” Ethekon added.
On the declining public confidence, the IEBC chairman added, “We understand that there have been challenges before where external interest may infiltrate some of our members to abdicate their roles. When it comes to the presidency, the constitution guides us that its chairman to declare. You pray for me that I will be there to do it, and I will do it,” the IEBC chairman said.
Ethekon said they will also be guided by the recommendations of the Supreme Court on their collegiality in collecting the results to avoid a situation where some members disown declared results.
The commission was also confronted to explain its position of persons impeached from office running for political office, an issue which Ethekon, who is a lawyer by training, avoided committing.
“The beauty about the law and lawyers is that we read, and the law is subject to interpretation. Article 75 will say this, Article 99 will say this, while judicial interpretation will say that. You become a client when you are nominated by the party. For now, it will be premature to pronounce ourselves on impeached persons running for office,” he said.
He described the controversy as new happenings within our constitution, where Article 38 of the constitution gives every Kenyan a right to participate in a political process, while Chapter Six locks out those impeached from vying, saying that the commission will be guided at the appropriate time.
“We are going to work internally to ensure this commission remains united. The commission does not operate on its own, but because of the climate outside. We have taken an oath of allegiance to the people of Kenya, the constitution and God. We will endeavour to give you the best,” Commissioner Hassan Noor said.
MPs also wanted to know if IEBC will maintain the current 46,000 polling stations across the country or if they will review them.
“The mapping of new registration centres, which some of them will translate to polling centres. We started the mapping two weeks ago, and the process is still going on. We shall be gazetting the registration centres, which are about 24,000,” IEBC Vice Chairperson Fahima Abdalla said.
