As Kenyans cheer or jeer from their narrow sectarian enclaves, issues that need thorough reflection take a back seat. They don't go away but resurface every so often. But even more, they have become tools for political mobilisation by the oligarchic political elites.
On need basis, we are whipped and nudged to a new reawakening as our collective conscience is pricked around an ideology that sounds nice but hollow. That is how we find ourselves revisiting the things that are the domain of our robust judicial and administrative processes and institutions, which we have adopted a love-hate approach towards depending on our interests.
For example, an election contested on a fair platform, whose results were challenged in the apex court and a verdict arrived at, is still an issue to be canvassed today. Any political settlement away from what was arrived at flies in the face of democratic practices underpinning the holding of expensive, time-consuming elections after every five years.
Notably, court-sanctioned and supervised partial opening of the servers during the election petition hearings split the two camps with Azimio presenting their own version away from what the Court Registrar and Kenya Kwanza lawyers saw and recorded.
How then would such an exercise be acceptable when it's the contesting political groupings driving it even with the pretence of appointing an ‘independent’ forensic auditor? Would it not be a perfect case of creating confusion so as to finally reap from the same?
It has happened in the past and all indications are that some people had hatched a plot to repeat it, something that reeks of hypocrisy and a travesty of justice underlying the need for exercising universal suffrage. We are gliding into the arena of mere platitudes, grandstanding and empty talks as weird demands rent the air.
After every election we gloss over issues that we conveniently clothe in people's attires to soothe the egos of few individuals who, once around the dining table, forget about the masses and the vicious circle continuous.
There are things that are non-contestable in the context of the current Kenya Kwanza-Azimio talks. The legislators are united about the entrenchment of the CDF Act given the way they have in the past jealously guarded against its breach. Even courts have borne the MPs’ brunt when the former make decisions that are incompatible with the legislators' thinking.
Two, the law can be strengthened to deal with party hoppers but more importantly the parties must be made to operate above parochial interests of their owners as they currently are. As long as what we call parties are mere personal entities of the top dogs, forcing people to remain in them is akin to trampling on their rights of association.
On the economy, the policies deployed are the swords the Kenya Kwanza government will fall on or survive by. Things are just unravelling and the success or failure of the government will only be gauged at the fullness of its stay in office.
The opposition, though, has the onus of keeping the government in check by offering an alternative thought. However, Azimio started grumbling about the economy immediately they left power, something I found preposterous and malicious.
Fourth, we have gone to every election with new IEBC commissioners. Even last year's one had a majority appointed eight months to the due date. This is not only expensive but drains the office of the benefits that come with longevity such as institutional memory and experience, important factors when handling vexed electoral issues.