Electoral officials who mishandled the August 8 presidential election have refused to resign, an IEBC commissioner has revealed.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commissioner Roselyn Akombe on Wednesday told the Bloomberg that failure of the officials to resign forced Chairman Wafula Chebukati to select a team that he has confidence in.
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“In a normal democracy, people would have introspected, they would have opted to step aside,” Bloomberg quotes Ms Akombe as saying.
“They have failed to do that. They have refused,” she added in a phone interview.
IEBC on Tuesday appointed six people to handle the October 17 election after the Supreme Court held that the August 8 poll was not conducted in accordance with the Constitution and the Elections Act.
Mr Chebukati drew the fresh team from among the commission’s secretariat to organise the October vote, comprising new heads of operations, logistics, training, legal, information technology and the national tallying centre.
“In a situation where they have refused to step aside, the chairman has no choice but to select a team that he has confidence in, that he wants to work with,” Akombe said. “This is to make sure that those things are not repeated. It’s rare to get a second chance to make it right.”
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Ms Akombe did not name the officials who have refused to resign.
The Nation’s efforts to get more details from Ms Akombe did not bear fruit as calls to her phone went unanswered.
She did reply to text messages either.
But earlier on Wednesday she had told the Nation that the commission was consulting on the fate of seven secretariat members who were side-lined by Mr Chebukati.
They are CEO Ezra Chiloba, his deputy Betty Nyabuto (Support) directors Immaculate Kasait (Logistics), Praxedes Tororey (Legal) and James Muhati (ICT).
Others are head of training Anne Nderitu and head of the national tallying centre Catherine Kamindo.
