Football Kenya Federation (FKF) Electoral Board chairmanon Kentice Tikolo yesterday came out in defence of the board over allegations of bias towards the office bearers despite the fact that they were expected to be impartial and mandated to oversee a free and fair polls.

This comes in the wake of questions raised over their credibility, in comparison with previous constituted electoral boards.

In 2015 the board constituted to oversee the polls that was led by lawyer Donald Kipkorir had to change the Electoral Code to make the exercise all inclusive and encouraging wide range participation at all levels after they met disgruntled participants and after hearing at their views, they ended up allowing the inclusion of clubs that had been omitted to participate in the exercise despite the fact that they qualified.

According to a section of local stake holders, the current board is impartial and are not interested in listening to concerns raised by other aspirants. Former football administrator Twaha Mbarak even questioned the decision to house the board’s offices at the federation headquarters, instead of having their offices at a neutral place.

“The Constitution of FKF is very clear and it protects our tenure and mandate. We have so executed our role to the best of our ability and it is a good thing our existence is appreciated by every stakeholder in the sport.

If not for the current situation with the COVID-19 and the stoppage of our polls process by the SDT ruling of March 17, we definitely could have been far because all teams had prepared and the officials were briefed appropriately.

Whatever happened was out of our control and it obviously interfered with our plans but that cannot mean all is lost so we will consult further,” she told People Sport yesterday off a phone interview.

She added: “It is not easy being on such a seat but as a board we are aware of the expectations and what is at stake. We will deliver a credible election so what we require is patience.

Many question our impartiality but of course we have a code that we operate under.

We will not take sides no matter the perception being painted out there. Indeed our progress on the job is what will determine our stand in this exercise.

In any case, after the last cancelled elections we went out of our way to post everything on the website and so we challenge the detractors to be precise in their complaints.