Unbelievably, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is shifting blame for his election loss from the voters to the Supreme Court, which did not find an error in Forms 34A enough to overturn President William Ruto’s victory.
Since Raila even failed to hire polling agents for his Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition, who would have been crucial in his election petition, it meant his lawyers were merely on a blind fishing expedition to be seen as having fought the poll results.
As per the 2017 High Court ruling on the Maina Kiai case, polling results start and end at a polling station. To dismiss election results, there must have been disputes at polling stations by party agents about the filling of Forms 34A. Without one, Raila’s case was dead on arrival and that’s why we witnessed shifting of alliances by some new MPs long before even the case had started.
Much as I empathise with Raila, his threats to organise a protest march to the Judiciary will be futile. The public protest of 2017 is very different from the current one. Even his supporters are tired of his defeats in five electoral cycles and are looking to a new leader to take them to Canaan.
Lastly, if Dr Ruto was able to defeat a sitting government while literally an outsider, though the Deputy President, now that he’s in charge means expecting him to lose in 2027 is daydreaming.
Raila should just accept defeat and move on by grooming a new leader. Let his defeat be a lesson to future presidential candidates never to be government ‘projects’.
Kenya is coming from what you can call one of the most intensive and draining elections in this part of the world. They could also be the most expensive and selective in terms of what one has to drive and dress and what you give as handouts to the voters.
IEBC and the Supreme Court have pronounced themselves on the matter. It’s time for everyone to get down to work. The media should give anyone trying to drag us back to elections a blackout. I heard someone say we should overhaul IEBC and raid the Judiciary. Because he was not declared the winner?
Kenyans need to know that the overhauls and the raids that the political class is talking about won’t lower the price of unga or fuel but rather increase it. These reviews are funded by the Exchequer, or ‘Wanjiku’. The politicians wants to engage us in their business but are seldom involved in the mwananchi’s affairs.
I wish someone was organising a one-million-man match to protest the cost of living. We have lost hundreds of Kenyans to hunger and traffic accidents and I have not heard of a threat to mobilise 100 people to protest.
I want to see a million-man-match in protest of default in the campaign promises and misuse of public funds but not on self-pity and desire to rise to power.
Joe Mungai, Washington State, USA
