The Commission on Friday, with the support of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), hosted an engaged session with the Heads of Missions Governance Group to appraise them on the status of its mandate.

Commission Secretary and CEO Marjan H Marjan took the envoys through the Commission electoral and boundaries delimitation operations and assured the Group that the Commission was on course to deliver on its mandates despite challenges of budget cuts and lack of Commissioners.

“The Commission has made big stride and achieved a great deal thanks to the vibrant collaboration that we have with your missions and I’m here to give a progress report on our processes, which you supported and enabled us to meet our mandate,” said Marjan.

“Many of you might be wondering that IEBC has no Commissioners and therefore what are we doing in office. Well, the Commission is always working and in my status update I focus on specific mandate that IEBC has to deliver including conduct of election, boundaries delimitation and referendum.”

Marjan observed that the Commission has been lauded for its good work conducting the 2022 General Election and has been feted locally and abroad. This has seen the Commission invited as part of observer team to Ghana and Zambia General Elections. On the other hand, the Commission received eight teams who visited to benchmark on IEBC electoral processes.

“We went to Zambia specifically because they enrolled many youths in their Register of Voters (RoV) despite the high apathy among this group. We benchmarked on Zambia so as to learn how they achieved this to enable us to implement it in Kenya,” said Marjan.

The meeting reiterated the need to fast track the review of the legal framework, in which the CEO informed the meeting that the Commission has made its submission to the joint Senate and National Assembly Justice and Legal Affairs Committee (JLAC) on a raft of amendments that was presented to the National Dialogue Committee (NADCO).

The Heads of Mission Governance Group observed that they were satisfied with the Commission’s consultative and progress. Caroline Vicini, the Swedish Ambassador and Heads of Mission Governance Group lauded the Commission for its good work.

“For the work you did in 2022 General Election, we are happy that you delivered. However, the development partners must not sit back now and say that Kenya electoral democracy has developed fully and stop supporting IEBC to continue meeting its mandate. Let us continue supporting the Commission,” said Vicini.

The Group, which also had European Union Representatives, Neil Wigan, the British High Commissioner Heads of Mission, Governance Group, Madelena Monoja Deputy Resident Representative – Programmes, UNDP pledged to continue supporting the Commission in its course to deepen democracy in Kenya.