Koki Muli: Politicians, trust deficit drive up Sh63bn election budget
National
By
Denis Omondi
| Feb 26, 2026
Elections expert Ambassador Koki Muli has blamed politicians for stoking public distrust that has made Kenya's elections among the world's most expensive.
Her remarks came after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) appeared before the National Assembly's Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs on Tuesday, seeking an additional Sh20 billion on top of the Sh43 billion already allocated by the Treasury for the 2027 polls, a budget the same politicians have dismissed as exorbitant.
"Kenyans have a very terrible trust deficit. They don't trust anyone. Kenya's ballot papers have more security features than the legal tender because we don't trust anyone or any systems," Muli noted.
Muli, one of nine members of the panel that selected the current IEBC commissioners, said that distrust, largely fuelled by politicians, has forced the commission to procure military-grade ballot printing from foreign firms, a costly exercise that drives up the election bill.
"We even have to print ballot paper abroad. The foreign firms contracted to deliver this military-grade printing stopped everything else to print our ballots," she added.
The IEBC budget shows Sh15 billion will go towards printing ballots and logistics, Sh12 billion for paying poll officials, Sh6.9 billion for new voter registration and Sh6.2 billion on election technology, including new Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS) kits.
About Sh1 billion from the logistics allocation will be spent on meals on election day, a figure that drew protests from members of parliament.
Muli reserved her sharpest critique for the electoral law itself, arguing that a provision in the Elections Act capping each polling station at 700 voters has forced IEBC to hire more than 500,000 officials to staff about 46,000 polling stations nationwide.
"The entire public service, including teachers and the police, totals a figure slightly under a million. IEBC hires more than half of that number for a single exercise conducted over a few days. Between 50 and 60 per cent of the money they are asking for will go into paying officials," she explained.
She called for the doubling of voters per polling station, a move she said could cut costs by about half, and warned that ongoing mass voter registration could trigger even more polling stations and more cost to the taxpayer.
Muli also backed the commission's Sh1.5 billion request to build the Uchaguzi Centre, a permanent IEBC headquarters.
The commission currently operates from Anniversary Towers along University Way in Nairobi, sharing the facility with other public institutions.