the IEBC's goal was to register 22 million voters, up from 15.8 million who had been registered as of
June 30, 2016, that is an additional of about 6 million voters. The population of Kenya is about 47 million
people. In addition to using the census data to draw their baseline and target, the Commission also
relied on data from the National Registration Bureau which shows that nine million Kenyan adults have
identification cards but are yet to register by the beginning of the 16 January 2017 MVR exercise. This
information is available on the IEBC’s website for easy access by all stakeholders and it is further broken
down to county level.
https://www.iebc.or.ke/registration/?stats
Election date
The Kenyan elections are penciled for 8 August, 2017, a date that is provided for in the country’s
electoral legislative framework. Unlike in previous years, only the President could set the date of the
General Election and decide when to dissolve Parliament. Before the current Constitution, this power
was one of the political tools at the disposal of the incumbent President. Now the date set in the
supreme law of Kenya, which stipulates that elections must be done on the first Tuesday of August
during the fifth year of the reigning regime. Though Section 144(3) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe
states that, the dates for a general election must be fixed by the President after consultation with ZEC,
the Kenyan Supreme Law has gone a step further to provide for the specific day / date. On the IEBC
website, there is even a countdown of hours, minutes and seconds left, before the 8 August elections.
Of interest again to note was the provision of clear timelines on all electoral processes and these are
clearly spelt out in the legal framework and administrative regulations, something that Zimbabwe can
take a leaf from.
2|Page