IEBC GETS A NEW CEO TO REPALCE OSWAGO

The new Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chief executive officer faces a huge task of gaining trust across the political divide as he settles down to work two years to the next elections.

Mr Ezra Chiloba, a specialist in electoral governance and political management, was last evening named to the position after day-long interviews of four candidates at the Ole Sereni Hotel in Nairobi.

Minutes to 8pm, IEBC chairman Ahmed Isaack Hassan announced in a statement, that they had settled on the Central European University- educated Chiloba to replace Mr James Oswago.

MOST SUCCESFUL

He said Mr Chiloba had emerged the most successful candidate in the interviews, which were conducted by the electoral commission’s management.

Mr Chiloba, who was the deputy team leader at Drivers of Accountability, beat Ms Beatrice Sungura Nyabuto, who was the acting IEBC chief executive, Mr Dickson Omondi, a governance expert who is the National Democratic Institute deputy resident director and Mr Erastus Ethekon, a programme specialist with the United Nations

Development Programme.

The new chief executive, who previously worked as a governance analyst at the UNDP, holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the Central European University (Hungary) and a Bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of Nairobi.

He is a senior fellow at the Policy House and a member of the Law Society of Kenya.

The IEBC invited applications for the position in August last year, nearly 10 months after Mr Oswago and his deputy, Mr Wilson Shollei, were suspended following investigations into impropriety in the March 2013 elections.

Alongside two others, they are facing charges relating to procurement of election materials and voter registration kits.

Mr Chiloba comes into the office when Cord has made the overhaul of the electoral commission, among other reforms, a key component of its campaign for a referendum.

OVER REFERENDUM

If the calls for dialogue between the Opposition and the ruling Jubilee Coalition fail, Mr Chiloba will be expected to preside over the referendum.

Jubilee politicians, however, have questioned Cord leaders’ sincerity, arguing that they are in Parliament and county governments through elections supervised by the commission they want disbanded.

Deputy Majority Leader in the Senate Charles Keter said Jubilee was satisfied with the way the IEBC had recruited its new chief through a process that involved PriceWaterhouseCoopers, an audit firm.