The Idiots guide to how NOT to run a Political Nomination.

The political nomination process should be quite straight forward; party members gather to elect the members they want to be on the ballot come election day, and in any country other than Kenya this would be true. If one is not nominated by its parties they gracefully bow out and congratulate the lucky winner for beating them fair and square and normally that is exactly what happens.  

On this side of the world things just get complicated. From allegations of rigging, to inability to provide university certificates and even angry late night storming of IEBC offices in protest and near violent protests by angered voters.

Even though the chaotic nominations took place a week or so ago they fall out or resulting comic and confusing errors are still hitting headlines and being talked or laughed about.

Perhaps the strangest parts of these seemingly normal proceedings was the furore that Rachel Shebesh and Mary Wambui caused a stir- to put it lightly- on Wednesday evening as the angrily demanded answers from Mr Hassan and Co. On their visit to the electoral bodies Nairobi offices for why Ms. Wambui’s name was missing from the TNA party nominees list that was submitted to them. This was laughable and strange because logically the party should handle such issues, so as I sat and watched the two smartly dressed women why they didn’t breakdown their party offices’ doors with their demands.

This confrontation could have a much less than desired outcome for the Othiya Parliamentary seat candidate as the IEBC have come down heavy on the ladies laying out their- bad to worse- options.   Ahmed Isaack Hassan stated before the media that Wambui and Shebesh could face either of three punishments in accordance to the body’s code of conduct:

·         The IEBC will issue a formal warning to the candidate or the political party

·         To fine the candidate or party

·         To disqualify the candidate and remove him/ her from the list of political party candidates.

The aspirants are still waiting to know their fate.

The constitution has certainly made a most positive change in the country- when MP’s are not trying to change it to suit their whims- and has proved to work well and give citizens a feeling of safety and a measure of security, the courts too have done their part to protect and secure citizens in their daily lives.

The law showed its teeth when it showed that it had to be obeyed and that none was above its long arms. This was made more evident when Bishop Margaret Wanjiru who was in the running for the Nairobi Gubernatorial seat, but those lofty aspirations were cut short when she failed to produce evidence of her Certificates of higher education- which is a requirement for anyone wanting to become a governor. The ones that she did produce tuned out to be as fake as Waiganjo was real.

This saw her out of the running in an already crowded gubernatorial race which included: Jimnah Mbaru and Ferdinand Waititu of TNA who eventually won the nomination of his party.
Wanjiru was down but not out for long as she was handed Senator’s seat, but to do so someone else had to be unceremoniously given the boot. The unfortunate and disgruntled person to be left out in the cold. This unfortunate soul was Elizabeth Ongoro who had to shelve her aspirations and settle for the Ruaraka seat.

This is most definitely not the way to do things. We would do well borrow a leaf from Europe, the US and even S.A on how true democracy should work. We are after all borrowing their system of governance instead of bashing all things Western and accusing the International Community of butting into our problems why not borrow their policy of democracy?

 

These moves undoubtedly had many in shock. With the presidential elections a month or so away, the chaos and confusion of the nominations must be a thing of the past, and fast, we as Kenyans and more appropriately our politicians have to find a more democratic way of solving problems, and we need not be so wound up. The eyes of the world will be upon us come March 4 and we cannot be seen to be a chaotic nation.