UNBUNDLING INEC: THE CRITICAL ISSUES

The generally accepted views by local and international observers that 2023 general election was riddled with flaws that exposed the election as the worst in our history, has brought to fore once again the debate and argument about the sanctity and transparency of our electoral laws in tangent with globally accepted practices for a credible election.

In the wake of the 2023 election, INEC issues its electoral guidelines promising a complete transparent process that will mandate all pooling results transmitted live to the viewing portal called IREV. This they promised at all gathering locally and internationally including the most respected and iconic Chatham House in London.

This gave stakeholders hope especially opposition political parties that this time around we were going to get it right by electing true representatives voted by the people and not the usual practice of imposing INEC selected candidates who did not win the election on the populace, a situation that has consistently made these corrupt politicians to ignore those they are supposed to represent rather amass wealth for themselves even greater than the state.

At some point, stakeholders raised alarm that they intercepted intelligence that INEC was going to jettison the transparent IREV for manual collation which has remained the bane of elections. INEC quickly rebuttled the alarm by insisting that IREV has come to stay as there was no going back.

This further strengthened the confidence of stakeholders that the election was certainly going to be transparent. But alas, the alarm eventually turned out to be true.

INEC betrayed all the trust by allowing the ruling party to write their own results jettisoning the actual pooling units results and forced that on parties at collation centre. The IREV which was supposed to be the game changer was abandoned at the 11th hour by INEC with a flimsy excuse of GLITCH. As i write today, 10months after, INEC is yet to explain to the whole world what constituted the glitch. Since then till now, its has been nothing but deceit and avoidance of the debate of what constituted the GLITCH.

All these has brought to fore the conversation again for a review of the electoral laws by blocking the loopholes which INEC and the ruling party APC exploited to rig the election.

It appeared the law did not stamp its decision on the IREV and electronic transmission, giving INEC and ruling party a window to subvert and exploit it through manual collation that is riddled with corruption ab initio.

The clamour now is for the 10th Senate to review the electoral laws once again making electronic transmission mandatory and reviewing other loopholes as it affects INEC.

As the call for totally unbundling INEC gets loudest ovation, i have these suggestions to make viz:

First, our elections must be electronically transmitted and collation based on the results transmitted from pooling booths to the IREV.

Secondly, INEC chairman must be appointed by judicial council that includes past Presidents as members.

INEC must have 6 zonal Deputy chairman from the 6 Geopolitical zones with one national chairman making it 7 members. All decisions pertaining to elections MUST be decided by the 7 members that make up the board of INEC. 

Any guideline issued by INEC prior to elections automatically becomes law.

The onus of proof of election results MUST be on INEC to prove to the court how they came about the results used in announcing any elections.

INEC must be unbundled with a separate electoral offences commission constituted to try and prosecute anyone culpable with jail terms without option of fines.

Any pooling booth where elections were disrupted, hijacked or results destroyed, there must be rerun and not outright cancellation of the results from that pooling booth.

Election petitions must be completely dealt with by the court before swearing in of any candidate. 

Finally as practised in Kenya, a sitting president must not preside over any election. He must be made to sit aside during any election, with the CJN made to supervise and taking his powers for the period of the elections. This is the only way to guarantee a transparent election and end this plethora and audacity of rigging as practised by INEC and the ruling party.

And to cap it all, the CJN must be based on the longest serving Justice in line without any influence of the President on anyone in appointing him or her.