Why many Kenyans have refused to ‘Accept and Move on.’

On Thursday, Cord’s Jakoyo Midiwo rubbed Jubilee MPs the wrong way. He refused to apologize for the 'thieves' comment he had made in the anti-ICC debate. He said that 70% of Kenyans believe they have been robbed of elections. He was asked to withdraw the remarks by the House Speaker, Justin Muturi, but he refused. Although he may have exaggerated the number of Kenyans who have refused to ‘accept and move on’, his rage shows that there is clearly a great number of Kenyans who still believe that for the second time, Cord’s leader, Raila odinga, was robbed of victory.

According to IEBC, Uhuru Kenyatta was validly elected with a percentage of 50.07 %, or just 4,000 votes more than the votes needed to cross the 50 percent mark. Mr. Odinga protested the results at the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court upheld Kenyatta’s victory. The Cord team then protested that the Judiciary had been compromised. Supporters of Odinga allege that there is no way that he would have won in six ‘former provinces’ but still have lost the election. According to Mutahi Ngunyi however, there was simply no

way Cord could have won the 2013 elections, based on the number of registered voters. He coined the term ‘tyranny of numbers’, which showed that just by the registration numbers, Jubilee was virtually guaranteed of election victory. In fact, if voter turn out were to be added, he predicted that the call would be the margin of victory, rather than who had won. Western, North eastern, and Coast for example, are areas with traditionally low voter registration and turn out, something that might have contributed to Cord’s loss.  

However, Cord still maintained that its numbers were cut down, while voter numbers in Jubilee zones were inflated. Its biggest assertion that the vote was rigged was in the failed BVR kits, and the failure of the electronic votes tallying system. It really sees a big hand in all these failures, something that it alleges was planned way before the elections. It accuses IEBC of massive failures, and being prone to manipulation. In fact, Kalonzo Musyoka alleged in a local publication that he has evidence that some of the IEBC’s officials created secret accounts in Seychelles from which handsome money was sent to their accounts.

New Presidential System.

Cord sees a change in the presidential system to a parliamentary one as the best hope for electoral reforms. In such an arrangement, it is the legislators who elect the President, instead of grassroots voters. In hindsight, parties with the highest number of MPs would carry the day, just as the UK practices. Another proposal was by the M4M movement; a movement led by civil society activists such as Okiya Omtatah, which wants the voters to elect the President yes, but it be an Electoral College system similar to the one practiced in the US. In such an arrangement, the contest would be county by county. For instance, if one won Nairobi County even by a single vote, they would take the whole of Nairobi’s electoral votes. The number of electoral votes per county will be decided either by the number of registered voters, or the population of the county.

Winner Takes All System.

While all these systems point to alternative governance systems, the fact is that it is a winner takes all system. Those who lose in elections feel alienated and vanquished. Those who win feel a need to rub it off on the faces of those who lost. In the cabinet appointments, and in parastatal appointments, regions that delivered the votes to Jubilee appear to have been favoured more. It is one of the reasons why Western Kenya is agitating for unity because it feels shortchanged, and is now planning to head into the 2017 elections as a united front, to increase its bargaining stake.

Has the President shown the face of Kenya in cabinet, parastatal, ambassadorial and other plum jobs appointments? If he can show that, then those who are unwilling to ‘accept and move on’ may just change their minds.