Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Kenya’s Political arithmetic. By Chido Nwangwu
“We totally without reservation reject the presidential election results…. What we saw yesterday was a travesty and blatant disregard of the constitution,” Kenya’s battle-weary opposition leader Raila Odinga said on August 16, 2022. He promised to exercise “all constitutional and legal options” after Deputy President William Sammie Ruto, PhD., was declared the winner of the August 9 election by Kenya’s Elections and Boundaries commission.
Kenya’s young and charismatic 55-year-old president-elect, Ruto, has the swag appeal of a social media savvy politician. He’s also controversial arising from war-crimes allegations and charges from the 2007 elections made against him at the International Court of Justice (later dropped).
For the 2022 campaign, Ruto gained substantial support for his knowledge of governance and development strategies.
Second, he campaigned on the mainline advantages of economic progress rather than get fixated on bloody inter-ethnic group conflicts.
Third, he actualized capabilities of the young, poor fellow who overcame poverty to become, realistically, the giant killer of the corruption-ridden ‘politricks’ of the East African nation of 56 million creative people!
Ruto led a remarkable political movement away from the dominance of the two major dynasties/families in political power of Kenya: Jomo Kenyatta (first President of relatively independent Kenya) and Odinga Odinga (first Vice President of relatively independent Kenya).
Remarkably, Jomo’s son Uhuru Kenyatta who is finishing his 2nd term in office was an ally of Ruto’s; Uhuru turned his back to support Raila Odinga’s latest unfulfilled effort to become President of Kenya.
During one of those efforts in the 1990s, Raila visited and discussed Kenya and Africa politics with me at USAfrica’s editorial headquarters in Houston, Texas.
Now, let’s go to the numbers requirements and palaver.
The President of Kenya is elected through a modified two-round system. According to Article 138 (4) of the Constitution of Kenya updated/amended 2010, to win in the first round, a candidate must receive over 50% of the vote nationally and 25% of the vote in at least 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties.
4 of the 7 electoral commissioners rejected the result to accuse the chairman of the commission Wafula Chebukati of engaging in a “mathematical absurdity that defies logic”.
Here’s why. The chairman’s math added up to 100.01%. Therefore, I must ask: If there is proof of manipulation of calculations or excess votes, will those change the outcome of the announcement made by the controversial election commission?
Meanwhile, sitting President Uhuru Kenyatta has not said anything about the unfolding uncertainty and tension emerging from the calculation and tally of percentages.
I know that Kenya is an important country in the geo-strategic power equation and intelligence interests of the United States. So, the U.S is keenly watching and interested. In nearby Somalia, the radical Islamists al-Shabab remain a material danger to Kenya itself and Somalia.
Recall that almost 10 days after the publication of the “Pandora Papers” (in October 2021) where it was revealed that Mr. Kenyatta, the President of Kenya, stashed away (with his family) $30 million US dollars in offshore accounts and secret tax havens, Biden hosted the same Kenyatta on Thursday, October 14, 2021. Kenyatta, therefore, became the first African leader hosted at the White House by Biden.
But in an indirect dig at the controversial Uhuru and his opaque financial dealings, the White House stated, as quoted in USAfricaonline.com that the two leaders will highlight “the need to bring transparency and accountability to domestic and international financial systems…. discuss efforts to defend democracy and human rights, advance peace and security, accelerate economic growth and tackle climate change.”
You may recall that on November 18, 2021, I wrote a commentary titled, Games Nations Play: U.S, Kenya, Biden, Blinken and Uhuru. By Chido Nwangwu
Also, I analyzed the November 2021 trip by the United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to three African countries, namely: Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal. Blinken’s assignment from November 15, started with his first destination being Nairobi, Kenya — where he met with Mr. Kenyatta.
Now, the big question is: will Raila Odinga’s almost 26 years quest to become president of Kenya be collapsed into history by the consequence of a “mathematical absurdity”? •Dr. Chido Nwangwu, author of the forthcoming 2022 book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity., is Founder & Publisher of the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper on the internet, USAfricaonline.com, and established USAfrica in 1992 in Houston. He served as an adviser on Africa business to Houston’s former Mayor Lee Brown. Follow him @Chido247
Disaster loading with “a sitting President asking for civil war.” By Chido Nwangwu
