NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 26 – Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Wafula Chebukati says the electoral body’s job is to prepare for elections and not be pallbearers for colleagues who have been murdered in the line of duty.
Speaking during the burial of slain IEBC official Daniel Musyoka, Chebukati stated that 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.
The poll agency Chairman decried that political rivalry and brinkmanship has risked the lives of election officials who conduct elections across the country.
“Our job is to prepare a register of voters not our murdered staff. It defies logic that with the technological capabilities criminal agencies have they have not been able to resolve murders of our staff,” he stated.
The IEBC chairman called on relevant agencies to resolve the murder of slain IEBC officers warning that if they remain unresolved, they risk creating a culture of intimidation of poll agency staff.
“Serving in IEBC should not be an inherently hazardous occupation. If the staff and the independence of the institutions are not vehemently protected, the institution will decreasingly attract honest men and women which will have a disastrous effect,” he said.
Musyoka had served the IEBC commission for ten years as a constituency election coordinator in Kilome.
Chebukati lamented that despite senior officials including himself and commissioners Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu having been publicly attacked at Bomas in full glare of the media no action was yet to be taken.
“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.
