That the President has appointed a team that will select commissioners for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is a move in the right direction, although it has come late in the day. It was even more encouraging that the Chief Justice moved with alacrity to swear in the selection panel, because this means they can get down to work right away and we will have a shortlist of commissioners and possible chairmen in the next 90 days.

With the legal hurdles out of the way, it behooves the panel to step up to the plate, dispense with internal housekeeping issues and embark at once on the job at hand. One only hopes that the remaining section of this all-important journey will be shielded from litigation so that we can actually move forward as a country. This is not to say, however, that any aggrieved party should be locked out and denied access to justice. Rather, the work should be done in such a transparent way that it will be difficult for anyone to challenge the process either in court or in the court of public opinion.

It is already troubling that since 2023, Kenya has been without an electoral commission after the tenure of the last two men standing – chairman Wafula Chebukati and Commissioner Boya Molu – expired without a proper transition at the helm of the agency. Yet we know for a fact that the conduct of elections is an important aspect of peace and security in Kenya given the high stakes that routinely characterise our politics.

What is needed now is for the team to take great care to ensure that the men and women it shortlists for consideration are citizens with an impeccable public record and high levels of integrity. This is because the next IEBC will have an onerous task, given the major shifts being experienced in local and national politics. It will be critical for those entrusted with the responsibility of shepherding the electoral process to be citizens who inspire confidence in Kenyans.

To do this, they must always be cognisant of the fact that there is more to an election than just the announcement of results. The entire ecosystem within which polls are conducted ought to be transparent and verifiable as decreed by the Supreme Court when it nullified the initial presidential election of 2017.

Secondly, it will be important for both the selection panel and the next set of IEBC commissioners to come up with a communication strategy that ensures flow of information to the public and channelling of feedback from various stakeholders. This has been a serious challenge in the past, and it was made worse in 2022 when the then commission was split down the middle, with each communicating messages diametrically opposite of what the other was saying. This will be an expensive luxury going forward and commissioners ought not to be allowed to gamble with the fate and stability of the country.

In the same breadth, both the panel and the next IEBC bosses ought to not only act independently but also be seen to be doing so. This will be the fulcrum on which their success or failure will hinge. In the past, there have been attempts to influence the work of the two teams, moves that were seen as calculated at locking out or disadvantaging some of the players. This should remain a thing of the past.

Kenyans have been demanding increased levels of accountability. As such, any attempts to unfairly or unduly influence the selection panel or the next IEBC will come under increased scrutiny now that young Kenyans have been savvy at leveraging technology to bring the government to account.

The philosophical framework aside, the big test that will face commissioners will be how they handle voter registration, civic education and procurement of election materials, most notably voter registration and identification gadgets and ballot papers. This is where the rubber will actually meet the road. How these will be handled is what will determine the success or otherwise of the 2027 election and subsequently the direction that the country will take. It is, therefore, critical that we get these three aspects right as they are at the very soul of electoral justice in Kenya.

— The writer is the Editor-in-Chief of The Nairobi Law Monthly and the Nairobi Business Monthly; [email protected]