10 hours Ago By Standard Digital
For the best experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. A woman casts her vote during the 2022 General Election voting process at St. Joseph Primary School in Mountain View in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.
[Boniface Okendo, Standard] The European Union Election Follow-up Mission (EU EFM) to Kenya has expressed concern at the slow pace of electoral reforms two and a half years to the next General Election. Speaking in Nairobi yesterday, the head of the EU EFM team Ivan Stefanec said while there was some progress, many of the EU Election Observer Mission in 2022 recommendations are still pending. “We noted a lack of tangible progress in the implementation of the recommendations offered by our mission in 2022,” he said.
Mr Stefanec was the Chief Observer of the EU Election Observer Mission (EU EOM) in 2022 and is a former member of the European Parliament. The EU EFM team pointed at the delay in appointing new IEBC commissioners as a particular point of worry. “The delay in appointing new IEBC commissioners has effectively postponed pending by-elections and the boundaries delimitation, halted continuous voter registration, and compromised the overall preparations for the 2027 elections.
It is essential that the IEBC is reconstituted without further delay and has adequate and timely allocated funding to prepare for the 2027 elections,” said Stefanec. The European Union deployed an Election Follow-up Mission to Kenya early this month to assess progress made in the electoral reform process and the implementation status of the recommendations made by the EU Election Observation Mission 2022. Stefanec said the EU EOM 2022 final report offered 21 recommendations, including seven “to be considered as priority for future electoral reforms based on observations, analysis and extensive discussions with various stakeholders.
” “These initiatives are mostly pending or are at an early stage, except for one that enabled the constitution of the IEB, which is, as we know, the IRBC Amendment Act,” he said. Stefanec said that while Kenya’s electoral legal reform proposals since 2022 have mainly emanated through the National Dialogue Committee (Nadco) process, there was still a lot yet to be done. “The Nadco reform proposals do not reflect sufficiently the recommendations made in 2022, such as activating the campaign finance law, ensuring timely and adequate funding to the IEBC or addressing law(s) pertaining to freedom of expression,” said Stefanec.
The priority recommendations made by the EU Observer Mission in 2022 include, among others: providing sufficient funds to the IEBC for continuous voter education; implementing improvements in electoral technology through regular audits and stakeholder consultation; operationalising the Election Campaign Financing Act to regulate campaign expenditures effectively; detailing the legal definition of hate speech in line with international human rights obligations; removing Sections 22 and 23 of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act; and establishing clear procedures for managing staff and the flow of information at tallying centres to increase the consistency and efficiency of the electoral process. Stay informed. Subscribe to our newsletter Stefanec said his team has, in the last three weeks, met different stakeholders in the electoral process, including government officials, parliamentary representatives, political party representatives, civil society and media representatives.
“I’d like to emphasize that most of our interlocutors agreed on the urgency to reconstitute an independent and fully functioning, IEBC well ahead of the next elections,” he said. The team offered their condolences following the death of former IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati..
