Homa Bay County leads in the number of applicants who have expressed interest in being either chairperson or commissioner of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
In a statement by the IEBC selection panel chairperson Nelson Makanda on Wednesday, March 5, 2025, more applicants who expressed interest in becoming IEBC chairperson came from Homa Bay County with 5, followed by Kisii, Bungoma and Trans-Nzoia counties with three candidates. Siaya, Nyeri and Baringo counties had two each while the rest had one or none. Three are persons living with disabilities.
In the statement, Makanda revealed that while the initial number of applicants for the IEBC leadership and commission stood at 1,848, they managed to clean the applications to 1,356 due to duplicate applications, stray applications and unreferenced applications.
Longlisted applicants
“From the last Press Statement, the Panel updated Kenyans on the total number of applications received at the close of the application process as 1848. Since then, the panel undertook a careful and thorough review of all email and hard copy applications received. This process revealed that several applicants had duplicate applications both on email and hard copy,” Makanda remarked.
“In addition, some applicants send applications that were not referenced as per the advert while others applied for positions not advertised (stray applications). As a result, the Panel has narrowed down the applications for both the Chairperson and Member of IEBC to a total of 1356. Out of these, 37 are for the position of Chairperson and 1319 for the position of Member of the IEBC.”
The 1,356 applicants, Makanda said, will be published in two newspapers with national circulation, the parliamentary website and the Kenya Gazette on Thursday, March 6, 2025.
Shortlisting for interviews
For the position of commissioner of the IEBC, Homa Bay County still led in the number of applicants with 63 expressing interest followed by Kisii at 62, Bungoma at 59, Kakamega at 54 and Siaya at 43. 137 applicants failed to attach their IDs while 49 were persons living with disabilities.
“Following the longlisting exercise, the Selection Panel shall now proceed to undertake the shortlisting process, the list of which will also be published soon before proceeding with the interviews,” Makanda added.
The selection panel is set to conduct interviews for the chairperson and commissioners of the IEBC before finalizing the process by April 25, 2025.
After that, the selection panel will present two names for the position of chairperson of the IEBC where President William Ruto will pick one.
The selection panel will equally present nine names to Ruto for the positions of commissioners where the president will choose six.
