Who Can Run Your Association’s Elections? A Governance Lesson for SACCOs, Unions and Professional Bodies

Every membership organisation eventually faces the same tense season: election time. Whether it’s a SACCO electing its board, a trade union electing officials, or a professional body like the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) electing its Council, the legitimacy of the people who end up in office  (and every decision they make afterward) depends on the election itself being unimpeachable.

A recent High Court case shows exactly how high the stakes get when that legitimacy is challenged, and it offers a useful governance lesson for any organisation that outsources its elections to a third party.

The dispute

In March 2024, the LSK held elections for its Council, its representative to the Judicial Service Commission, and its representatives to the Advocates Disciplinary Tribunal. The elections were conducted by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), but the IEBC itself had no sitting Commissioners at the time, a gap that lasted nearly two years.

A member petitioned the High Court, arguing that the elections were invalid on two fronts: first, that no law actually authorised the IEBC (as opposed to LSK’s own council) to run these particular elections; and second, that a commission with no Commissioners cannot lawfully conduct anything. He sought to have the entire Council’s election declared void, every decision the Council made since then invalidated, and all remuneration paid to elected officials clawed back.

That is a genuinely alarming remedy for any membership body to contemplate: an entire governing council, and everything it has decided, unwound retroactively.

What the Court decided

The High Court dismissed the petition. It held that LSK’s own regulations expressly contemplated the IEBC as an electoral body available to run Council elections, and that this arrangement (an Act-of-Parliament-established body engaging another statutory body to run its elections) sat comfortably within the constitutional framework. The Court also rejected the argument that the IEBC’s internal leadership vacancy tainted the process, holding that running an election of this kind for a third party was an administrative function properly exercised by the IEBC’s secretariat, distinct from the policy and oversight role reserved for Commissioners.

What this means for your organisation

If your SACCO, union, or association engages an external body to conduct your leadership elections (as many do, precisely to keep the process credible and above reproach) this case is a reminder to get the mechanics right before ballots are cast, not after:

Your constitutive documents (Act, rules, constitution, or regulations) should clearly identify who may conduct your elections, and how that body is selected or approved.

Where members must approve the electoral body in a general meeting, that approval should be properly minuted and evidenced.

If a dispute does arise after the results are declared, the burden is on the challenger to show the irregularity actually affected the outcome, a bare procedural objection is rarely enough to unseat an elected leadership.

Get the electoral framework right, and your organisation is far better insulated against exactly the kind of high-stakes, all-or-nothing challenge this petitioner brought.

CB Mwongela & Co. Advocates represented the IEBC in this matter and secured a full dismissal of the petition. We advise membership organisations  (SACCOs, cooperatives, unions, and professional and trade associations) on governance structures, election frameworks, and disputes arising from leadership contests. If your organisation’s next election is on the horizon, now is the time to have your framework reviewed.