First off, lemme just confess that I wasn’t following the Supreme Court proceedings, because obviously I expected it to be business as usual. I expected Raira to be told “ulishindwa roho safi mzae, kubali yaishe makende hii”. Plus I had better things to do with my time. So I might get some facts wrong. When someone told me we were going to do another election, I at first dismissed it as a prank. Not for long though.
Anyway, from the little that I’ve been able to gather, this ruling makes no sense whatsoever. Logically speaking that is. I mean, if I understood correctly, there was no evidence of outright rigging. The bone of contention was with the election process, right? Missing forms, missing signatures and such like. Maybe lawyers in the village can shed more light on this. But if the election process was marred by irregularities, shouldn’t the entire thing have been annulled? In the polling stations, 6 ballot papers were handed out. So how is it that the irregularities only affected the presidential part of the election?
If someone goes to court to demand the entire process be repeated, will they be in order? Using the Supreme Court’s logic that the election process was flawed, can I go to court and demand that everyone else who won under that process, from the MCA to governor, did so unfairly? Remember the supreme court’s rulings are not only binding, but also set precedent on all other courts in Kenya. So expect an avalanche of petitions in the coming months. It’s a good time to be a lawyer, right?
The only reason I can think of that would make the SC make such a ruling is because they wanted to “make history”. We’re seeing the effects, the entire world is shocked at the decision. I’m sure even nasa were surprised. Sure, Kenya is being praised for her democratic “maturity”, but this decision, the way I see it, only serves to plunge the country into another constitutional crisis. This is a decision I would have expected from a kangaroo court sitting outside city hall. Only difference is, that kangaroo court would have gone further to “recommend” that all IEBC commissioners, plus Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, be executed by firing squad at the public square.
To put things in perspective, we’re the fourth country in the world, and first in Africa, to have an election nullified. Just let that sink in.
The way I see it, a few days before a truck carrying 25,000 pages of “evidence” showed up, the supreme court justices had a meeting. In this meeting, they said to one another, “My Lords, and Ladies…for far too long, the Executive and Legislature have wowed us with their stupidity. We’ve been patiently watching from the sidelines, waiting for our turn. Well, the time is now…let’s out-stupid them!!!”
These are interesting times, is what I’m saying.