Truth, they say is sometimes stranger than fiction, and as Mario Puzo also adds, behind every successful man there is a crime. The flying affidavits and the attendant fake news and misinformation in tow not only lend credence to such statements but also speak of the theatre of the absurd in our electoral process and IEBC appears to be at the centre of everything thrilling and absurd at the same time. In fact, Mario Puzo talks of young men starting down a false path to true destiny. Our democracy if fledgling and the path we are on now is false and we must use the experiences of the 2022 elections and the Supreme Court outcome as a pathway to our true destiny.
It is no longer the results of the elections that are contested, but our democracy, the power of our criminal justice system and most importantly our electoral justice system. Since the return of multiparty democracy in 1992 we have had elections with incidences. Even in 2002 everything went okay but we witnessed fairly ugly incidences that ought to have raised red flags. Those 19 foreigners, shrouded in opaqueness can have unfettered access to our critical and strategic electoral infrastructure and they did that from as early as March 2022 speaks volume of our trust deficit and high proclivity to monkey businesses.
In fact, this idea of putting up a short, medium and long-term winning strategy has been taken to a new high. Martin Luther King Jr talks about judging leaders on the basis of the content of their character and integrity. Well, as Kenyans we did exactly that and no one should blame Kenyans for putting their trust is some of the leaders we elected. Many with active court cases of criminal nature including economic crimes. But the elephant in the room is not even the content of character of the folks we elect. Kenya is a democracy and the power that elected leaders, regardless of the content of their characters, is donated by the citizenry and if the citizenry give power to wash wash guys and other criminals it is an indictment of the citizenry and the society not the bad leaders. The elephant in the room is the electoral system.
Going by the many affidavits flying around it safe to argue that if our democracy is liberal and who we give the power is a function of what IEBC does or did in the just concluded elections, then the strategy to win an election appears to have shifted from leaders convincing the citizenry to leaders using either orthodox or unorthodox strategies to corrupt the electoral system. This is certainly the biggest threat to our democracy. That the body trusted to adjudicate the people’s sovereign will, instead of helping us understand how foolproof their system is, is self-annihilating and painting to the whole world its glaring proclivity to be compromised. To aid. To abet and condone criminal strategies of winning elections. You see, the accusations and counter accusations are symptomatic of a deeply rooted problem. A problem where the price of winning an election is so big that individuals at the electoral body charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the public and only the public gives that power to the elected leaders is susceptible to manipulation.
Simply put, today, it does not help what the supreme court verdict will be if the culprits are not dealt with judiciously and decisively. We need to redeem the waning belief in our democracy, and it begins with dealing with individuals who were hellbent on selling the sovereign will of the people to the highest bidder. No one should be celebrated for being too clever in doing the non-normative and no crime should go unpunished, political persuasion or leaning notwithstanding. Such tired arguments like a political formation did not have agents hence the rigging suggests that on the one hand we fund IEBC and are still expected to police its due diligence. And on the second hand we are literary saying that a thief is allowed to steal if there is no security. Well, the thief appears to have been caught and at stake is our sovereignty (look at the foreigners who had access to sensitive details about who we give power to) and this appears to be the battle for the soul and future of our nation.
–Hesbon Hansen Owilla
The author is a PhD Candidate in Media Studies and Political communication.
