Nairobi — The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Secretariat has called for the protection of its staff from political meddling to preserve the agency's autonomy.
Appearing before the National Dialogue Committee at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi on Friday, IEBC CEO Marjan Hussein Marjan recommended acquisition of commission-owned headquarters (Uchaguzi Centre) to provide a secure work environment and to enhance security elections officials.
Marjan said agency's members and employees security needs to be prioritized before, during, and after elections.
"During the preparation and conduct of the 2020 general election, the members of the commission, staff and election officials countrywide were subjected to abduction, intimidation, maiming, murder and loss of life," he said.
"It is worth noting that we reported the matter to the police, wrote a statement but to date no one has been brought to book to account for the above transgression."
The CEO added the government should provide a special allowance for the members of the commission and staff to compensate them for the risk of exposure during elections.
He also called for a public inquiry into the murder, abduction intimidation, harassment, loss of life and attacks on staff and commissioners.
"We submit that working for IEBC should neither be a death sentence nor a career graveyard," he said.
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Abductions and murders
IEBC staff have been a target of abductions some of which have ended up in murders.
At the height of the August 2022 General Election, then IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati called for action following the murder of Daniel Musyoka, an IEBC staff, who was found dead days after he went missing on August 11.
His body was recovered in Kajiado South on August 15.
Musyoka was the Returning Officer for Embakasi East Constituency in Nairobi County.
Chebukati while speaking in Machakos County during the burial ceremony of Musyoka, raised alarm over what he termed as an emerging pattern of IEBC personnel who had been assassinated.
He said working for the commission should not be a death sentence.
"Why must an election officer be murdered after every election? Whose gods do we anger by performing our sacred constitutional duty?" Chebukati posed.
"We cannot continue like this, we cannot make working for IEBC a death sentence," he added.
Chebukati had himself suffered physical attacks alongside commissioners Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu in full glare of the media as the commission prepared to declare 2022 presidential election results.
"To date no one has been arrested for crimes committed against senior constitutional office holders seen live on TV, if the leadership of IEBC can be attacked where there was heavy security presence one can't imagine the fate of other IEBC staff," he noted.
