Former Deputy Chief Registrar of the Judiciary Francis Kakai Kissinger has dismissed claims that he was fired over corruption.

Appearing before the IEBC selection panel for the interview to be the next chairperson, Kissinger denied he was involved in gross misconduct and violation of the public procurement law when he served in the Judiciary Tender Committee.

The panel had put him to task to explain why he lost his job at the height of investigations into the controversial purchase of a palatial home for the former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga and the building of Mavoko Law Courts.

Kissinger said he was victimised due to his critical role including pioneering reforms in the courts under the Judicial Performance Programme.

“We were aiming to have a court in each of the counties and the project was under a lot of financial scrutiny, and during the rollout of the project, there was a lot of miscommunication,” he said, adding that people did not understand what was going on.

“When there were issues on an unconstructed court, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) moved in. Fortunately, it was a pure miscommunication, because the court (Mavoko) had been constructed in a different site,” he went on to explain.

Alleged irregularities

On the ex-CJ’s Runda home, the candidate said that the wrongdoing in the deal was purchasing the property without a cabinet memo.

“When there is a change of government, processing documents becomes hard. When the memo was finally processed, it proved that the management was acting according to the documents processed under the Kibaki government,” he told the panel.

In 2015, EACC recommended the prosecution of Kissinger alongside the then Chief Registrar of Judiciary Gladys Shollei and other members of the Judiciary Tender Committee over alleged irregularities in the purchase of the CJ’s home at a cost of Sh310 million.

After losing his job, Kissinger said he embarked on pursuing a career in elections and has served as an Election Observer in eight countries where he has consolidated crucial skills in electoral process management.

“In most institutions, during elections, things get too hot and one has to have soft governance skills to minimise chances of conflict,” he said.

Kissinger said IEBC must now incorporate human rights component in its operations by establishing a form of compensating them due to the risk of managing elections that have seen them being killed.

Noting that a credible election must start at the party primaries, Kissinger insisted that political parties should align their constitutions to eliminate legal gaps that discriminate minority groups, persons with disabilities and gender rule during nominations.

“To manage those conflicts within political parties, there has to be a very strong stakeholder engagement with the political parties to relook into the constitution and the laws governing nominations,” he emphasised.

The candidate said that IEBC should stamp its authority on adherence to the rule of law during party primaries such that it can determine when to reject a list of nominees that is not compliant.

Boundary review

“IEBC by law is required to liaise, and coordinate with Registrar of Political Parties and should compel the political parties to adhere to the law during nominations,” he stated.

Additionally, the candidate said the electoral body should come up with regulations on campaign financing to supplement the Campaign Financing Act 2013, which lacks supportive legislation from Parliament.

Kissinger expressed concern that the new commissioners will be assuming office when time has lapsed for the IEBC to conduct boundary delimitation and review of protected constituencies.

If appointed to head IEBC, Kissinger said he would prioritise the boundary review, which he stated also lacks the requisite law to guide the boundary delimitation.

He also said that there should be an IEBC fund to finance voter education.

During the second day of the interviews, Erastus Edung was tasked to explain how he would ensure that people from marginalised communities exercise their democratic voting rights during the forthcoming elections. The 48-year-old lawyer acknowledged that members of marginalised communities are often disenfranchised right from registration, voter education and actual voting.

“In 1997 and 2002, presidential election results were declared even without factoring in those results from some of those regions, because the numbers were so dismal and could not affect the overall outcome,” Edung told the panel.

The candidate said that he will adopt a rights-based approach to voter registration and education to guide in addressing some of the challenges facing marginalised groups. He proposed the use of mobile voter registration in far-flung areas and the use of vernacular radio stations to conduct voter education.

Survival first

Edung, who has also served as a human rights lawyer, said that low voter turnout in pastoralist areas is normally caused by drought and insecurity as a result of cattle rustling.

“During drought, people would rather concentrate on looking for basic survival than go and vote because that is a luxury to them. In other areas, because of insecurity, people fear to go and vote as it turns out to be a season for cattle rustling as security agents are occupied with providing security around elections,” Edung said.

Edung told the panel that he had served as a returning officer for the then Electoral Commission of Kenya in 1997 and later as a presiding officer for the IEBC during the 2002 general elections.