The mere mention of the December 27, 2002, General Election brightens even the gloomiest of Kenyan faces. That hope-filled year makes one nostalgic. The success of that election raised Kenyans from the tomb of hopelessness.
It was a free and fair election. Rainbow coalition candidate Mwai Kibaki, who was confined to a wheelchair after an accident at the Machakos junction on the Nairobi-Mombasa highway on December 3, 2002, romped to thunderous victory.
Three days later, Kibaki, his head popping out of a neck brace, was sworn in as President, sending his former boss President Daniel arap Moi to a belated retirement. Kanu’s reign of 39 years came to a screeching halt, leaving a trail of broken hearts weeping on the manicured lawns of State House, Nairobi, Moi’s seat of power for 24 long years.
Indeed, it was historic and will remain etched on the minds of many a Kenyan for many years. It is a history we are proud to be associated with.
Fast forward to subsequent elections, and we start looking all wrinkly and puffed up from sadness. Those who glided into power in 2002 went in sober but after a sip of the broth of power, they got inebriated and greedy.
The five years they spent in the sanctums of power induced in them an uncontrollable craving for more doses of the juices of power. They got unforgivably drunk and myopic. Bigotry set in with its grandchildren.
So, they embarked on a journey dripping with “us versus them” slogans. They put tribal interests before those of the country. The results were devastating, to put it lightly.
In the highly flammable 2007 election, vast interests came into play and snowballed into violent clashes that put the country on the brink of civil war.
Were it not for the international community’s interventions, Kenya would now be sitting on the same platform with war-torn countries such as Somalia and Sudan.
That is what happens when leaders divorce themselves from their core responsibilities and cannibalise the people and all the tenets of democratic values.
When leaders attain this vampire-like state, the glue that holds a nation together starts to fail. This is what happened in 2007, when the nation was left gasping for air after going through a suffocating period of bloodshed. Kenya has never been the same.
Why are we here? Blame it on the hydra-faced ogre of stolen elections as in the case of 2007. Blame it on the lack of free and fair elections.
In spite of Kibaki and Raila Odinga agreeing to work together in the infamous nusu mkate (half loaf) government, there were deep-running concerns that never really got exorcised by the Kofi Annan-led team of eminent persons.
Kenyans remain deeply divided. The presidential election is no longer about good leadership. It is no longer about democracy prevailing. It is all about our tribal chiefs. I call this voodoo thinking, which has no place in 21st Century Kenya.
In 2013, the opposition went to court to register its concerns over what it termed a rigged election. Raila swore that his victory was for the second time snatched from him.
Despite what the legal minds termed overwhelming evidence of massive rigging, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jubilee, paving the way for the swearing in of Uhuru Kenyatta as President and William Ruto as Deputy President on April 9, 2013.
This time round, Raila, whose quiver has only a single arrow left, promises his supporters he will not seek redress from the courts in the event the election is not free and fair.
It is for the love of Kenya that we should hold a free and fair election on August 8. This will ensure peace.
Free and fair elections open the gates to an avalanche of peace.