Opposition renews push to keep Smartmatic out of 2027 election

Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka addresses a section of Kitui leaders and clergy during a prayer session at Kefri Grounds in Kitui town on August 10, 2027. [Philip Muasya, Standard]

For Kenya's opposition, the 2027 General Election is already being fought long before the first ballot is cast. At the centre of the latest battle is not a political rally or a campaign promise, but the technology expected to sit behind the country's next election.

Wiper Patriotic Front leader Kalonzo Musyoka and former Attorney General Justin Muturi have renewed calls for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to keep Smartmatic out of the 2027 polls, reviving memories of the technological disputes that followed the 2022 presidential election.

Their concern is straightforward. Kenyans should never find themselves in a situation where a private technology company can stand between voters, electoral officials and the courts when questions arise about what happened to their votes.

Addressing faithful at Redeemed Gospel Church in Kithimani Township, Machakos County, on Sunday, Kalonzo challenged the IEBC to stay the course with its new procurement process instead of allowing delays to create a route back for Smartmatic.

“IEBC, the world extends beyond Kenya; the world is watching you,” Kalonzo said.

He claimed that attempts were being made to frustrate the procurement process until time runs out, forcing the commission to fall back on the existing technology provider.

“We stated that we cannot go into the next election with Smartmatic as the software provider,” he said.

Kalonzo did not name the people he accused of interfering with the process, but warned that the opposition would resist any attempt to bring Smartmatic back through what he described as procurement maneuvers.

“We know these games. These games must come to an end,” he said.

He cited Article 1 of the Constitution, which places sovereign power in the hands of the people, arguing that technology used during elections must strengthen that power rather than create another layer between citizens and the institutions meant to protect their vote.

The Wiper leader pointed to the youth-led protests against the Finance Bill as an example of citizens exercising their constitutional power directly.

The call for greater scrutiny of the electoral process was echoed yesterday by former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who challenged IEBC chairman Erastus Ethekon to explain the commission's level of preparedness for the 2027 election.

“What Ethekon must tell us is the level of preparedness,” Gachagua said.

He called on the IEBC to sit down with all political players, including the opposition, and take them through the preparations so that they can interrogate the process and make suggestions ahead of the election.

“We are asking him to sit with everybody including the opposition and take us through the process and explain to us the level of preparedness so that we can interrogate the preparedness and make suggestions so that the election takes place as outlined in the Constitution,” he said.

Gachagua's remarks add to the pressure on the electoral commission as it moves to procure the technology and other materials that will underpin the 2027 polls. They also reinforce the opposition's broader demand that political players should have sufficient visibility into the electoral process before voting day, particularly as questions over the technology provider remain unresolved.

While Kalonzo's warning was political, Muturi's concerns were largely centred on what happens when an election ends up in court.

Speaking at ACK Mukuria Hungu in Murang'a town, on Sunday, the former Attorney General warned that Kenya could find itself confronting the same technological questions that emerged during the 2022 presidential election petition.

His concern was not simply which company supplies the technology. It is what happens when the technology becomes evidence. Muturi wants the electoral system to allow authorised Kenyan institutions, particularly the courts, to examine the electronic trail behind election results whenever a dispute arises.

“We want the rights of every voter to be protected. Conduct a transparent and verifiable process,” he said.

He questioned the possibility of a foreign company controlling critical electoral data and then invoking intellectual property rights when Kenyan institutions seek access to the systems.

“You cannot have a situation where a foreign company has the data of all Kenyans and, when asked to open the system, says no. That kind of contract we cannot accept,” he said.

That concern takes Kenya back to August 2022. Smartmatic had supplied election technology to the IEBC for the August 9 election. When the presidential election was challenged before the Supreme Court, the question of access to the electoral system became one of the most contentious issues.

The court ordered scrutiny of aspects of the electoral technology, including servers and electronic material. Smartmatic, however, raised concerns over intellectual property and the security of its systems. The company argued that unrestricted access could expose sensitive technology, including source code and security features.

That disagreement left Kenya facing an uncomfortable question: what happens when the interests of a private technology provider collide with the public's right to have an election independently verified?

The Supreme Court eventually upheld President William Ruto's victory. But the petition brought the architecture behind Kenya's elections into public view, exposing concerns around results transmission, servers, electronic records and the ability of parties to interrogate the systems used during polling.

For Muturi, those lessons should now be written into the next election's procurement contracts.

He wants the IEBC to require any successful technology provider to guarantee access to servers, system logs, audit trails, user records and other technical evidence that may be needed to verify an election.

“Whatever technology is used must be available to the Kenyan courts,” he said.

It is this issue of access that makes the opposition's objection to Smartmatic more complicated than simply rejecting one company.

They are demanding assurances that no technology provider can become so powerful that its proprietary interests take precedence over Kenya's electoral justice system.

On August 11 the IEBC advertised international tenders for key election technology and materials, including an Integrated Elections Management System and the hardware and support services required to operate it. The move comes as the commission prepares for the August 10, 2027 General Election, more than a year before Kenyans head to the ballot.

Smartmatic's previous involvement is now inevitably part of the conversation. The company won the 2022 technology contract after, according to the IEBC, receiving the highest combined technical and financial score among five bidders. Its systems were used in voter identification and other electoral processes. The contract was challenged through procurement and legal channels but was ultimately upheld.

Yet the fact that the procurement was legally defended does not erase the questions that surfaced during the presidential petition.

That is why the opposition wants the commission to go beyond asking whether a technology provider can deliver the system. It wants the IEBC to ask whether Kenyans, political parties and courts will be able to independently interrogate that system when its integrity is questioned.

Muturi has connected the issue to the National Dialogue Committee's recommendations on electoral reform, arguing that Kenya cannot claim to have learnt from the 2022 dispute while leaving the same vulnerabilities unresolved.

The argument is not that companies should surrender legitimate intellectual property. Rather, it is that intellectual property should not become an escape route when the country needs evidence to establish whether an election was properly conducted.

The controversy has also been fuelled by Smartmatic's international profile. The London-headquartered company presents itself as a major player in election technology, saying its systems have processed billions of votes around the world and are designed to be secure and auditable. But the company has also found itself at the centre of election controversies beyond Kenya.

Smartmatic has repeatedly found itself at the centre of political debate and public mistrust across the globe. In Venezuela, the company publicly broke with authorities after alleging that official turnout figures for the 2017 Constituent Assembly election were manipulated by over one million votes.

Following the 2020 presidential election in the United States, Smartmatic was entangled in prolonged controversies and filed several high-stakes defamation lawsuits to counter unverified claims regarding its voting systems.

In African nations such as Uganda and Malawi, political opposition and civil society groups have voiced concerns over the transparency, hardware reliability, and data transmission security of its infrastructure, prompting local electoral commissions to publicly address and defend their procurement decisions.

Despite these recurring international disputes, Smartmatic firmly denies any systemic wrongdoing, maintaining that its technology remains auditable, secure, and accurate.

Those episodes do not, by themselves, establish that the company's systems are unsafe or incapable of running an election. But in Kenya, where electoral technology already carries a heavy political burden, they provide ammunition for those demanding greater scrutiny.

The deeper problem is trust. For years, Kenyan elections have been accompanied by suspicion over electronic transmission, tallying and the possibility of technological manipulation. The 2022 presidential petition did little to remove those fears.

The IEBC therefore faces a difficult task. It must procure technology that works, but it must also convince a deeply sceptical public that the technology can be examined when necessary.

Kalonzo's message is that the commission should not allow administrative delays to determine who supplies that technology. Muturi's message is that whoever wins the tender must agree from the beginning that Kenyan courts and other authorised institutions will have access to the evidence they need. Gachagua, meanwhile, wants the commission to open up its preparedness to political stakeholders so that they can interrogate the process before election day.

Together, their concerns point to a larger question that will hang over the 2027 election long before voting day: can Kenyans trust the technology behind their vote?

For the opposition, bringing back Smartmatic without first resolving the questions raised in 2022 would risk reopening an old wound.

Their demand to the IEBC is therefore coming early. Build an electoral system that can withstand scrutiny before the votes are cast, rather than searching for answers after the results have been declared.