OKECH: Don't waste votes on suspects

Wiper Democratic Movement leader Kalonzo Musyoka won't waste time on a presidential race that pundits consider a two-horse race.  

The self-named 'Buffalo Soldier' from Kambaland won't cope, even though the beast of the savannah has a superior piercing power. Foul play doesn't count, even if the Buffalo Soldier pierces the hips of a sturdy horse on the presidential trail.

The winning horse must garner 50-plus one per cent of the national vote, and at least 25 per cent of ballots cast in 24 of 47 counties. This was a tall race for the former vice president.

It was even taller for Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi. Mudavadi, a former rugby player nicknamed Phantom, knows cheeky ducks and dives do not count in the race for presidential votes.

Without a single county governor backing his presidential run, and only a handful ANC MPs hanging around him, Mudavadi, a former vice president, won't waste money.

Some of the MPs have since fled to secure their survival elsewhere. One MPs claimed Mudavadi could not finance a presidential campaign.

There was no pathway for Kalonzo to State House during the August 9 General Election. The mean parliamentary numbers Wiper enjoys is a bad sign. Governors from Kalonzo's Kamba base had long decided on the horse to bet.

Governor Alfred Mutua of Machakos county, Kitui's Charity Ngilu and Kivutha Kibwana of Makueni made it hard for Kalonzo to breath. He joined them in the Azimio la Umoja train.

Kalonzo won't be counted as a vote waster. He ducked, even as cynics cheered him to stampede into the stables of the two horses. That would have meant a runoff, without a guarantee of a 'kati kati' moment.

Time was running out. Politicians are taking positions near the next likely centre of power. Nor would Kalonzo, a former Mwingi North MP, allow history to count him, again, as an electoral opportunist who prefers to align with winners via shortcuts.

During the 2007 presidential election, Kalonzo squeezed in between President Mwai Kibaki and then change-charged Raila Odinga. Kalonzo ran for president, without the hope of winning. But he brokered post-election stalemate between Kibaki, then Party of National Unity presidential candidate, and ODM leader Raila.

Kalonzo was appointed vice president during Kibaki's controversial second term.

Kalonzo and Mudavadi won't be held responsible for inciting people who would waste their votes on presidential aspirants with unlikely chances of winning. Or on mules masquerading as horses.

There are three ways voters can waste the ballot: Voting under the influence of handouts, refusing to vote, and voting for losing aspirants, or supporting those who have questionable integrity.

Such wastage is the consequence of low civic consciousness. None of the three pathways of wasting votes is inspired by knowledge or patriotism.

Politicians love gullible voters. They love them desperate. They want voters they can manipulate. Low civic consciousness feeds political mendacity.

Politicians, at all elective levels, easily sell lies and propaganda to voters who cannot question their intentions. They feed such voters on handouts and vacuous promises. They blind the masses to force their way into public offices.

On the eve of another election, voters need to weaponise the ballot. There is no better time to separate the chaff and the grain. There is no other time for the electorate to show that their voices matter than now.

This is the time to knock out aspirants who carry the baggage of corruption. The public knows those who have records of abusing their offices. The suspects – thieves with practising licences – also know themselves.

History matters. Voters should probe the histories of aspirants for public offices. Your vote can clean the stable.