What new IEBC officials need to succeed

Finally, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has been reconstituted after a protracted process.
The last hurdle was cleared by the courts last week when they dismissed a petition that challenged the selection and nomination of commissioners.
The government wasted no time in gazetting the new commissioners as demanded by the courts and swearing them in.
A long to-do list has been piling up in the IEBC commissioners’ in-tray.
Most urgent is the pending by-elections that have left several constituencies without representation. Voter registration needs to start immediately.
Auditing the voter register is another big task yet to get off the ground. The process of procuring the auditing agent, given that Kenya is a notoriously litigious society, looks set to be a major obstacle.
The IEBC must start recruiting the officials that it will need to carry out the 2027 general election. These officials need to be recruited competitively, selected, appointed, trained and deployed.
Commissioners must also immediately start tackling the elephant in the room – redrawing constituency boundaries, whose constitutionally prescribed deadline has been overrun by delays.
It also waits to be seen how the commissioners will address the issue of the counties of Mandera, Wajir and Garissa, whose 2019 census figures were thrown out by the courts.
The IEBC uses census figures as the basis for drawing boundaries.
This new IEBC must have the wisdom of Solomon if they are to successfully navigate what are really treacherous waters.
If the IEBC is to successfully achieve this very onerous work programme, then it needs support from all players across the board, especially the political class.
First, the political class must stop delegitimising the IEBC.
It has become fashionable now to castigate the new commissioners before they have even taken office, and question their credentials and recruitment process.
The truth is that the commissioners were recruited in a transparent manner by a completely independent body as prescribed by law.
Questioning the recruitment and suitability of the commissioners is dishonest.
Second, the National Treasury must ensure the IEBC is adequately funded. Further, this funding must be released in a timely manner.
Equally important, the IEBC and the Treasury must ensure that every supplier is paid for their work this electoral cycle.
Third, there must be no more delays. Two delays have been the most insidious.
The first was by the Wiper party, which was involved in internal bickering over its representative on the IEBC selection committee, delaying its work for months.
This, even as party leader Kalonzo Musyoka was accusing the government of delaying the remaking of the IEBC.
Politicians must stop this duplicity.
The second delay was the petition challenging the process of recruiting commissioners, which stopped them from taking office.
The fact that the three-judge bench unanimously dismissed all the prayers in the petition shows that it was a frivolous case indeed! These sideshows must stop.
Allow the IEBC to work for Kenyans. Courts must also reject the invitation to issue ex parte injunctions delaying the work of the IEBC.
The new commissioners are now in office. They had better be in a hurry. Almost every deadline in the 2027 electoral calendar has elapsed.
Truly, the IEBC is running out of time before it has even started!