The electoral agency IEBC is probably the most consequential of the Chapter 15 commissions. According to the Constitution, the primary mandate of these  commissions  and Independent Offices  is to protect the sovereignty of the people, ensure that all State organs observe democratic values and principles and promote constitutionalism.

They compliment and even check the excesses of the other three State organs  the Executive, Judiciary and the Executive.

With the media as the Forth Estate, some jurisdictions treat the commissions as the Fifth Government. Given the nature of our polarising elections that often lead to the loss of lives due to contested results, the role of the national polls team is delicate and demands greater responsibility.

It is supposed to be an independent and fair arbiter of political contests.

But followers of Kenya’s history can tell that the conduct of elections by the IEBC has always fallen short of expectations. A divided IEBC almost pushed the country into anarchy after the last presidential elections.

One group of commissioners denounced the presidential results by questioning the integrity of the outcome. At one time in our political history, the Supreme Court has nullified a presidential election and reprimanded the IEBC for how it conducted the poll.

It is, however, unfortunate that we learn not an iota from the crises arising from elections. The Constitution demands of the IEBC to conduct fair, credible, transparent, verifiable elections and referenda with the support of technology.

 This is not a complex science.

The problem is recruiting members of the IEBC. Already, parties have started jostling to pick members for the panel that will interview candidates for the electoral agency.

This is where we tend to let our guard down. We let the nominating bodies the usual suspects pick incompetent individuals, usually average lawyers, political rejects, sycophants, pseudo-scholars and clerics to hire commissioners for the IEBC. Then they end up recruiting individuals who sound and look like them.

That is why we are calling for greater vigilance and scrutiny to ensure that the individuals being nominated are competent, mature and professional men and women of integrity with a succinct understanding of the magnitude of the national duty they are being entrusted with by their compatriots.

The recruitment should be treated as an opportunity for Kenya to remedy and cure self-inflicted problems.

This is the challenge to the nominating bodies.