Early in the week, President Uhuru Kenyatta proposed that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) be tasked with overseeing party primary elections.
I must admit that I was surprised by this proposal especially bearing in mind the fact that it came from President Uhuru Kenyatta who very well knows that the current IEBC's capacity to conduct any elective exercise is still questionable.
Am personally against the use of the IEBC in this exercise since it may involve the use of public resources to conduct party business.
And in any case if the IEBC is allowed to oversee party primaries and that parties fund the IEBC, it will open room for the financiers to dictate on party primary election results.
This would be unfair.
And to a large extent the development will automatically erase the independence of the electoral body.
The economy is already doing badly and here the president is making a proposal that may involve spending public funds. This is a burden to the taxpayer.
If the IEBC conducts party primaries and losers criticize it after losing, how will the electoral body be seen in view of the fact that it will be expected to conduct a presidential poll?
This would amount to discrediting the elections before they are even conducted.
So, to be on a safe side, let parties conduct their own primary polls. The IEBC can carry on from there.