Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commision (IEBC) Chief Executive Officer Ezra Chiloba’s three-week leave will not affect preparations for the election, a commissioner of the electoral body has stated.
Prof Abdi Guliye ascertained that even with Dr Roselyn Akombe’s departure, decisions are still being made at the plenary and the senior management is handling the actual operations.
“Five days, six days to the elections, all the processes are complete. His departure will not have much of an impact on the elections. There wasn’t any decision Ezra was making on his own,” Prof Guliye told journalists in Dubai.
The commissioner was leading a delegation that went to monitor the printing of the ballot papers, result forms and other material by Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing firm.
[caption caption="Prof Abdi Guliye"]
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Dr Akombe abandoned the team in Dubai and traveled to New York from where announced her resignation from IEBC.
On the other hand, Chiloba started a three-week leave of absence from the IEBC which partly fulfills demands by the National Super Alliance (NASA) that he should not oversee the repeat election.
NASA has, however, maintained that Chiloba's decision came too late, claiming he had already put the 'rigging infrastructure' in place.
Mr Chiloba has stuck to his position that the attacks against him were unfair given that he was not involved in the day-to-day running of the commission and there were other commissioners whose dockets contributed to the damning decision of the Supreme Court.
With the printing complete and dispatch to Nairobi on, all that remains is the distribution to constituencies.
Mr Chiloba’s decision to take leave came as it emerged that cracks within IEBC began showing when the chairman tabled before the plenary a demand by the National Super Alliance that some of the staff and a commissioner be asked to resign.
[caption caption="NASA protestors"]
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But with tension and anxiety because of the assertion by NASA that the election will not happen, there is no certainty that the poll will take place.
