Lawyer defends media's right to election results as Senate weighs livestream ban
National
By
Ronald Kipruto
| Jul 30, 2026
Lawyer Ndegwa Njiru says the media has every right to collect election results and report them, dismissing claims that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) plans to bar live streaming of results as they are declared.
He made the remarks on Thursday during an interview on Spice FM.
"The media has every right to collect election results from all 45,000 polling stations and report them," said Njiru. "Reporting results is not the same as declaring a winner."
Njiru noted that the IEBC should let the media, civil society and agents take part in election oversight.
He explained that openness forms the foundation of democracy and described opposition to live streaming as self-defeating.
Those who oppose the practice have something to fear, he added.
His remarks come as the Senate considers the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2026, which would delete the section requiring IEBC to stream polling station results live and replace it with a system built around electronic transmission of results to tallying centres. Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot and Minority Leader Stewart Madzayo jointly sponsor the bill.
The live feed carries no legal weight but lets journalists, agents and citizens watch results arrive and compare them to later official announcements. Livestreaming was introduced as a transparency safeguard to secure the credibility of presidential elections after the 2007 poll chaos.
IEBC chairperson Erastus Ethekon dismissed Njiru's claims during a national consultative forum on the proposed Election Campaign Financing Regulations, 2026.
"I would like to assure the people of Kenya that there is nothing like that whatsoever," Ethekon said.
He noted that the commission remains committed to transparency and will not restrict media coverage of elections.
"This commission stands for transparency and accountability and we will be the last people to make any decision or proposal to stifle the freedom of the media," Ethekon explained.
He observed that the IEBC has neither proposed nor considered barring live media coverage of the electoral process and called the allegations false and misleading.
Ethekon added that the commission remains bound by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kenya Media Sector Working Group, which includes the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) and the Kenya Editors Guild (KEG), to facilitate election coverage.