OMWENGA: Plans to hire Chebukati as judge height of impunity

The current reincarnation of ECK is the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, which was created in the 2010 constitutional reforms. The expectation was that the new electoral agency would rid the country of electoral crimes and deliver open, fair and transparent elections.

Note: I have not said to rid the country of rigging, which is an impossibility. There are no perfect elections, and sometimes there is only a thin line of separation between what can be deemed as rigging and sheer shrewd politics by those who know and are able to maximide every opportunity at their disposal to bury their opponent.

The latter is what President William Ruto did in hoisting himself to the presidency.

This can be distinguished from what happened in 2007, 2013 and 2017 in ways that make it a separate matter and in a class of its own.

In 2007 we had in your face, thuggish rigging that nearly plunged the country into a civil war.

In 2013, neither presidential candidate won the requisite 50 per cent plus one—at least that’s what most of us believe. However, the Opposition, led by its flagbearer Raila Odinga, conducted such a lacklustre campaign compared to what was expected, and more so compared to 2007 such that the powers that be decided to do away with round two and had President Uhuru Kenyatta declared as winner.

In other words, the 2013 election’s IEBC chairman—a man whose ticket to fame had much to do with which community he hailed from more than anything else did not disappoint.

The man delivered a flawed election outcome whose toxic stench was only neutralised by the Supreme Court's fumigation, which allowed the country to barely breathe.

Those of us who pushed for the man, coming from a formerly marginalised community to be appointed as IEBC chairman, thought he would prove to the nation and country that it is possible to have a corruption-free IEBC, or at least one that delivers credible elections. And with that, the man would have been lifted high as a hero, no different from any of the founding fathers.

He miserably failed in that regard and proved he was just as corrupt or at least he was able, willing and ready to do the bidding of those who wanted him to ignore the constitution and violate his office. He did not disappoint them.

You would think I am talking about Wafula Chebukati, the immediate former chairman of the electoral commission. The characterisation fits but Chebukati only continued where the man left off.

When four IEBC commissioners resigned at the tense moments when Raila and team were engaged in an exercise in futility at the Supreme Court in 2022, that was all the evidence one needed to know Chebukati was presiding over a joint far removed from the rule of law and democratic ideals.

The difference between 2022 and all other awful electoral misconduct and criminality is the Azimio leader mostly suffered from self-inflicted wounds and was majorly let down by many around him while Ruto and company were strategically and stealthily matching onward to State House.

Never mind what Ruto has done, or more accurately, what he has failed to do since getting there.

It is now being reported that there is some plan to appoint Chebukati as a Court of Appeal judge and position him well enough to be elevated to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice.

Doing so would be the height of impunity unlike anything we have ever seen, and even though the source of this information is none other than Raila, who is not known to carelessly say things of this magnitude, one can only assume this was some trial balloon to see people’s reaction.

That reaction must be a resounding no and proceed only at the risk of hammering yet another nail on the presently loose one-term casket.

Some things are just not worth even trying.