Kenyans paid such prolonged and intense attention to the event that millions of them now know the figures by rote. According to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries and Commission , Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta won the presidency after he garnered 6,173,433 votes against Raila Amolo Odinga’s 5,340,546 votes.
The IEBC certified that Uhuru achieved the constitutional requirement of more than 50 per cent of the vote by getting 50.07 per cent (4,100 votes above the 50 per cent mark), against Raila’s 43.31 per cent.
The victory was wafer thin – just 0.07 per cent above the watermark of 50 per cent + 1. Uhuru looked at the narrow margin and grinned broadly. It was enough. The Jubilee coalition had delivered, riding on its twin booster rockets – the vast Mt Kenya and Rift Valley vote blocs – of what political analyst Mutahi Ngunyi had characterised as the “tyranny of numbers”.
Raila looked at the narrow margin and scowled deeply. It was not enough. About 10,000 of his voters in the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) in his Kilifi stronghold had not voted for lack of election materials – this was more than twice the number of the margin of victory.
And although the IEBC put him at more than 800,000 votes behind Uhuru, Raila looked at the vote difference as merely quantity (and suspicious to boot) and at the percentage margin of victory as quality, and therefore what really mattered, and saw a completely different “tyranny of numbers”.
And, as Kenyans well know, any tyranny makes the man they call Agwambo see bright red. Most sensational case ever
The challenge to the Jubilee Coalition’s presidential election victory as declared and certified by the IEBC, scheduled for Monday at the Supreme Court, has far-reaching implications for Kenya’s immediate and near future.
The case brought by Cord against the IEBC will easily be the most sensational matter to be handled by the Kenyan Judiciary since the British left Kenya. No Kenyan court has adjudged a case of this magnitude.
Kenyans are living in interesting times indeed. Nowadays, we seem to move from superlative to superlative, including superlatives of crises (for instance the 2007-08 post-election violence disaster). And in the eye of every one of these serial perfect storms sits the apparently indefatigable figure of Raila Amolo Odinga.
We have just moved from the biggest and most complex general election and its nail-biting presidential contest towards the biggest court case of them all.
And whatever the Supreme Court of Kenya judges ultimately rule over the next fortnight will rock Kenya to its very foundations – for better or for worse.
As President-elect and Deputy President-elect, respectively, Uhuru and William Ruto were well on their way to crafting the first Cabinet under the new constitution, when Cord struck and made their Supreme Court intentions known.
There, before the Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, Cord will petition against the presidential poll results.
This move was much more than Cord merely raining on Uhuruto’s parade; it was more like a massive rugby tackle. Even as they trooped to court, President-elect Uhuru’s Presidential Standard was being designed and his Inaugural Address refined by speechwriters.
The Committee on Assumption to the Office of the President, comprising top civil servants and security officials, was already debriefing Uhuru and Ruto on the scheduled March 26 handover at Kasarani Stadium. The VIP invitations were being prepared and the military honour-guard drills were ongoing.
The symbolism of the spectacle of a second generation Odinga tripping up a second generation Kenyatta on his way to State House in this fashion is potent indeed – it has its fans but it also has powerful and implacable foes.
Among other things, Raila and running- mate Kalonzo Musyoka’s move means that the Presidential handover and inauguration scheduled for March 26 will now in all likelihood not take place.
Outgoing President Mwai Kibaki could well be in office well into April – or later. Putting the Kibaki Succession on hold
In fact, as far as Cord is concerned, even an 18-month extension for Kibaki is perfectly in order as long as the matter of the general election result is thoroughly scrutinised by other constitutional offices and officers than the IEBC as at present constituted.
Forcing such a scenario – putting the Kibaki Succession on hold as reformed institutions contend with each other over a contested Presidential poll result – would accumulate massive mileage, in certain quarters, especially in the Western capitals, for the political brand that identifies itself most loudly with 'reforms' and 'democracy'.
Cord is clearly angling for a result in court that overturns the IEBC conduct and tallying of the presidential election result.
Raila’s and Cord' s abandonment of trust in the IEBC was sudden and complete. The Jubilee coalition is predicting that, if things do not go his way in court either, Raila’s abandonment of faith in the Supreme Court, which is headed by a good friend and fellow former political detainee and self-exile, will be even swifter and more comprehensive – and then Kenya could really be in trouble.
Jubilee: Raila will never concede
As far as the Jubilee team is concerned, the case in court is just a bloody-minded continuation, by other means, of the epic 45-year-long Kenyatta versus Odinga contest.
Uhuru and Ruto, having “arrived” and been certified by the IEBC in a race that was also observed by, among many expert others, at least three former African presidents with world-class democratic credentials, are of the opinion that Kenyans have developed a serious case of election fatigue and Raila will simply never accept defeat – not even in court.
They point out that Raila actually signed on to accepting the result of the presidential race as tabulated by the IEBC, only to reject it even before the vote count was over and to table objections and charges that no other election observers have raised.
He has orally pledged to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling. Jubilee is looking askance at Raila’s quick shuffle from abandoning an inked pledge to making a spoken one.
CORD: Yet another tainted poll
Raila’s objections were contained in a statement issued on Saturday March 9, the same day Uhuru was proclaimed winner in the race for State House and made his victory speech. Among other things, Raila made his own proclamation, saying in part:
“Despite the hiccups the IEBC experienced in implementing a smooth and transparent run-up to Election Day, Kenyans were convinced that the IEBC would translate their faith in democracy into a completely credible election which would unite the country.
“What Kenyans witnessed instead was the failure of virtually every instrument the IEBC had deployed for the election: The poll books, the servers, the telephonic transmission, the BVR – they all failed despite the billions spent on acquiring them”.
On Monday March 11, a close aide of Raila’s told the French news agency AFP that he is going to insist on a “forensic audit of manual and electronic data” as well as “drastic reduction and rise” of votes in some constituencies after the official register was closed.
The aide added: “Among other things, they are questioning the one million voters who voted only for president and no other position”. The stage was well and truly set for a titanic confrontation in the Mutunga court.
The allegations Cord is taking to the Supreme Court are grave indeed and imply the most egregious wrongdoing on the part of a whole raft of officials and players, including in the outgoing government.
These accusations have potentially adverse effects on the reputations not only of the IEBC and its commissioners but also of other institutions and eminent persons.
Among the Jubilee coalition support base, where President-elect Uhuru has advised “modest victory celebrations”, the confidence with which Cord is proceeding is being read as much more than business-as-usual political posturing – it is being viewed as strangely disconcerting. Cord is giving every impression that they have compelling, indeed overwhelming, evidence of their enormous allegations.
On Tuesday, Uhuru and Ruto went to State House, Nairobi, where they met President Kibaki and Head of the Civil Service Francis Kimemia, among other officials, continuing with the all-systems-go momentum of the scheduled handover on March 26, apparently without reference to what the Supreme Court might rule once Cord petitions on the 18th.
They also visited the Treasury, Uhuru’s last ministerial posting, where they were received by Finance Minister Njeru Githae. In a bit of a showboating gesture that must have had Cord gnashing their teeth in annoyance, Uhuru handed Githae a copy of the Jubilee Manifesto apparently with the instruction that the government begins to implement its economic programme with immediate effect.
Later the same day in the Kibera area of his Lang’ata constituency, Raila seemed to respond with some showboating gestures and utterances of his own at his first political rally since the election.
In dark glasses and a colourful campaign shirt, in contrast to Uhuru and Ruto’s suit-and-tie style since they were proclaimed the winners, Raila told a huge crowd of rollicking and chanting supporters who waved his campaign posters as if it were still campaign season, in Kiswahili: “Hawatatoroka na ushindi wetu! (They will not get away with our victory!).”
This was a reference to the impending case at the Supreme Court.
Raila, ever the master of upping the ante in Kenya politics, was doing much more than merely showboating. He had just coined the next protest mantra for his followers, replacing the 2007-08 chant of “Haki Yetu (Our Rights)” with the much more potent “Ushindi Wetu (Our Victory)”, no longer a demand but a fait accompli.
It is a vast claim and the Jubilee Coalition, whose tyranny of numbers extends to the National Assembly and Senate, comprising the Eleventh Parliament, is not exactly sitting on its laurels.
Kenyans and their observers on all sides are still biting on what is left of their nails after the week-long saga of the vote count – and hoping desperately that another general election aftermath does not degenerate into yet another case of irresistible-force-meets-immovable-object.
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