IEBC budgets for Kenya’s most expensive General Election yet

A sage once quipped that there is no democracy without elections and on the other hand there are no elections without funding. The funding has to facilitate the election while the election has to merit the funding; but is this Kenya’s case? 

Electoral procedures are exceedingly multifaceted and demand funding to achieve the requisite level in administrative and organizational capacity. In Kenya, the IEBC is the administrative backbone of elections responsible for recruiting and hiring staff, educating voters, registering aspirants, registering voters, printing ballot papers, setting up polling stations, recording votes, and announcing election results.

During the 2017 General Election, the IEBC was allocated Ksh.49.9 billion, making it the most expensive polls in Africa. In terms of cost per voter, the Kenyan election budget translated to $25.4 (approx. Ksh.3,200) per voter, for each of the 19.6 million voters, making it the most expensive electoral exercise in Africa and globally, second only to Papua New Guinea at $63 (approx. Ksh.8,100) cost per voter.

In what could be Kenya’s most expensive general elections yet; on Wednesday, February 26, the IEBC tabled a policy document in the National Assembly, before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, in which it seeks at least Ksh.61.7 billion to prepare for and carry out the 2027 General Elections. This is Ksh19 billion more than what was spent during the last polls in 2022.

IEBC Deputy Chief Executive Officer Obadia Keitany says the budgetary funding over a three-year period is to run from the current financial year 2025/26, 2026/27 up until 2027/28. Mr. Keitany, requested that at least Ksh.15 billion be availed within the current financial year to expedite the operations of the national polls body including voter registration; the purchase of the digital election processing kits, known locally as the Kenya Integrated Election Management (KIEMS) kit; and the purchase of elections materials.

The IEBC submitted that from this humongous budget, there is need for Ksh.3.82 billion for election related transport, Ksh.1.2 billion for meals, Ksh1.3 billion for hire and purchase of motor vehicles. Further, it will require Ksh.2.6 billion for upgrade and maintenance of election systems and Ksh.1.1 billion each for legal petitions and risk registration.

The polls body needs Ksh.3.61 billion for the procurement of election materials, Ksh.6 billion to enable procurement of ballot papers, Ksh.3.2 billion for stakeholder engagements (advocacy) and Ksh.2.7 billion for training of electoral officials’ expenses.

It also requires Ksh.7 billion for continuous voter registration and voter verification exercise in the 2025/2026 and 2026/27 financial years, Ksh.7.04 billion for the acquisition of 45,000 new Kenya Integrated Election Management (KIEMS) kits, and Ksh.15.6 billion for IEBC employee wages; and Ksh.7 billion to enable a review of constituency boundaries and delineation of boundaries.

However, the IEBC deputy CEO informed the committee that the organization was awaiting the court’s direction on the matter concerning the review of boundaries and delineation of boundaries. 

Interestingly, even as the IEBC requests for money to spend on delineation of boundaries, Article 89(2) of the Constitution states that the IEBC shall review names and boundaries of constituencies at intervals of not less than eight years, and not more than 12 years. In light of the fact that the last review was conducted in early 2012, it is an issue which was overtaken by time in early 2024 unless the courts will advise otherwise.

But even as the secretariat of the IEBC continues to keep the body afloat, the apex body of IEBC commissioners has been missing since the exit of three commissioners, the late Wafula Chebukati, Boya Molu and Abdi Guliye, at the expiry of their time in early 2023.

On the other hand, four fresh commissioners were forced out of office by the Kenya Kwanza government immediately after it took power, ostensibly for their refusal to accept the 2022 General Election results, leaving the polls body in limbo.

Various attempts to form a new commission, over time, have also been thwarted by court injunctions. However, the last injunction contesting the process was withdrawn in 2024 and with the IEBC commissioners’ selection panel already in place, this could mean in early June, the IEBC commission could be in place.

During the appearance before the parliamentary committee, the IEBC Deputy CEO explained to the committee that it had been paralyzed and could not carry out the much-needed continuous voter registration owing to the lack of a commission as procedurally envisaged.

The total absence of a commission has also meant that over 14 by-elections which are due could not be carried out thereby disenfranchising voters and the public in those affected regions who have for varied time spans lacked representation either in parliament or the county assemblies.

On 26th July 2022, Citizen Digital ran a story that Kenya was going to hold one of the most expensive elections worldwide, then. The IEBC went on to execute it to the tune of Ksh.44.6 billion. This meant that the IEBC conducted the electoral exercise that involved 22,120,258 registered voters, translating to an expenditure of about Ksh2,000 per voter.

The 2027 voter register is far from complete and it remains to be seen what will be the cost per voter once the IEBC registers pan out with final figures. All indications are that it will be more expensive than the previous one, and Kenya will set a new record for all the wrong reasons.

On the other hand, there is the dichotomy that if IEBC gets underfunded, then it might fail to perform its core electoral administrative functions, disenfranchise voters, and negatively impact the integrity, legitimacy, and outcome of the general elections.

Kenya must not relent in the development of sufficient electoral capacity to achieve democratic governance, but the growing cost of elections threatens the socio-economic fabric of the society as elections become prohibitively expensive.

For a country like Kenya, which is battling innumerable socio-political and economic issues, expensive elections are a risk to political stability, and rising electoral costs are fueling concerns over the value of democratic processes in struggling budding democracies. The strange fact is that high electoral costs do not necessarily translate to electoral integrity or a higher quality of democracy. 

Freedom House, an organization devoted to the support and defense of democracy around the world, carried out a study on the quality of democracy and found out that there has been deterioration from 2005 up to and beyond 2018 in Sub-Saharan Africa.

To adhere to regular elections, in the absence of rule of law, functioning of government, freedom of expression and associational rights, does not strengthen democracy beyond occupying its place in a country’s constitutional articles.

An analysis done by Jaap van der Straaten, from the Civil Registration for Development (CRC4D), says Sub-Saharan Africa, where Kenya sits,  has experienced the highest increase in the cost of elections over the past 20 years. Between 2000-2018, Sub-Saharan Africa spent nearly $125 billion on elections. 

Persistent cases of ineffective election administration, low voter turnout, voter manipulation, voting irregularities, curtailing the independence of the press electoral fraud, corruption, and inconsistent access to justice, and violation of civil liberties and social rights, are a manifestation that Kenya is not receiving dividends proportionate to the election administration costs.

The IEBC policy document presented in parliament indicates that the 2027 General Election is going to be the most expensive poll, yet. This is as Kenya is in the throes of its very soul with many primary pressing needs such as the endemic problems and strikes within the health sector; an education sector that is crippled from primary to tertiary education by strikes, poor funding and low capitation; over taxation of the working class and worsening poverty levels.

The huge electoral expenditure proposed by the IEBC for processing the elections in 2027 seems like a misplaced priority. Kenya should also be wary of the unhealthy dependence on donor support to meet electoral budget deficits as they play a part in compromising national sovereignties and exposing the country to foreign manipulation. Can Kenya learn to live within its means while allowing integrity to guide all its objectives? It is possible.