Let’s start at a good place, let’s start at the beginning. Let’s arbitrarily say that the current political atmosphere in Kenya was born somewhere in the year 2002; in which the so-called Moi Orphans ganged up against the prince of the Kenyatta family and elected Emilio Kibaki president. By all accounts this was Kenya’s moment in the sun. Optimism and hope rent the air. For about a year. Let’s then remember that in 2007, everyone agreed the Kenyan election was a mirage, including then ECK chair, Kivuitu. Then finally, let us remember that the memory of 2007 led a new supreme court to err on the side of caution and choose peace above justice, leaving Kenyans deserving none and ushering in the most divisive government in our history. You can think Kenyatta Sr. was the worst, but I’m telling you, Moi is taking notes about these two gentlemen’s homework. So, 2017 was in all senses, a turning point that would mix 2007 and 2013 in the perfect proportions for a democratic soup.
I can now say it confidently because after the September 1st annulment of presidential election results by the Supreme Court, the Jubilee administration has gone on such a wide tangent of delirium you’d be forgiven for thinking they were previously elected and confirmed by the same court. From a half-drunk president blocking city traffic to rant about the apparent injustice of the court, to a deputy president threatening impeachment and constitutional amendment; the shock and panic is as palpable as the ethnic tension these two tribal kingpins seek to instil in their geopolitical bases. And don’t even get me started on Moses Kuria.
Here’s a few arguments made by the Jubilee coalition, and their pure nonsense both politically and objectively. First, it has now dawned on the administration that the Supreme Court bench is made up of so few people that they cannot adjudicate a case of 15 million votes. The nonsense? It so happens that the IEBC only beats the supreme court in numbers by one commissioner, and it doesn’t look like the number of commissioners made it impossible for Uhuru Kenyatta to smile for his certificate from “eight people.” Second, apparently, the court should have called for a recount of the votes from polling stations across the country. Nonsense? Yeah, tell that to the million shilling, chest thumping, shrubbing, twitter-famous lawyers you had fill your side of the bench with poesy and an Othello performance (I’m looking at you, Mr. Subreme Goat). This is the worst form of argument period. No court of law suggests evidentiary recommendations for what a defence should be doing to prove their petitioners wrong, if anything by rejecting in totality and delaying in technicality the opening of IEBC servers, Jubilee properly refused a vote recount. It is rich then, to lecture unfortunate fishmongers and bait them with a critique of the court that your lawyers had no time to make when it mattered. Finally, about that claim of dealing with the courts? Yeah, bullshit. See, Jubilee would first have to pass legislation that is constitutionally sound and hope it doesn’t see a day in court. Then, they would have to pray that the entire country is so oblivious of their posturing as to not care at all for their institutions. I didn’t see much of the Moi era, but I can tell you for free, Kenya would sooner be two countries than one nation under a drunk prince and a thieving ethnic chieftain cheered on by ethnic brown envelope flower girls. Anything else is a buttock scratching stretch.
So, no. A Jubilee scared of its own shadow worries no one in their right political mind. Zilch. Nada. Onge Akweri.
All these would be nine, if the tenth problem wasn’t a political class within the NASA coalition that cared more for their own enrichment than for the good of the change movement. To begin with, little is said about the manners in which the coalition of parties both collectively and individually allowed their own self-interest to crowd an otherwise brilliant political strategy. The tales on internal wrangles in ODM alone would be a bestselling novel. The party nomination process strides reality and fiction and then back again with ease. As if that wasn’t enough, individual politicians who clearly know little about political patience (I’m looking at Sarai and Ababu, I could look at Otwoma too but what’s to see there) in a rush for self-aggrandizement have betrayed the coalition in more ways than one. You could begin with the infamous Ababu tapes, or with the Otwoma double-speak and you’d have a good reading either way. Finally, there is the problem of functioning structures within the coalition working alongside incompetent baggage. For instance, the NASA tallying centre was a godsend, now if only elected NASA officials could back it up by manning polling stations on their own, there would be no need for data gaps. You only have to look at the beatings and roughing up Waititu got in Kilifi to know that Aisha Jumwa and Mishi Mboko are not coastal decorations within the coalition.
Here I conclude. Jubilee is heading nowhere, and it’s going there very fast. NASA has the closest bet they have had for a presidential win, and with the wind of petitions in lower courts an opportunity to overturn the so-called supermajority by Jubilee. They squander this at their own risk. If I sat at Capital Hill, I would sooner have Raila in Todonyang telling the people about the new dawn than have him reading off statistics about a tetanus vaccine. Those are sideshows that waste energy, the coalition must know it’s working on borrowed time. If indeed those issues are of importance, there is currently no government to hold to account. If anything, they can deal with all those after they win the election. This is time for Realpolitik, from where I’m standing the number one import of the Jubilee administration (hint, it’s like consulting and has Cambridge in it) has got them running circles around NASA. It is the duty of NASA to keep Jubilee running in concentric circles, and not get encircled in a political siege. I rest my case.
