Round 2, Lala Salama (There's Still Time to Jump Ship) & Peace Above All Else.

It has been quite a last few days what with politicians running themselves dizzy in search of those last few votes desperate to make the most of the last few days available to them to politic and market themselves as the best candidate to lead the country for the next 5 years.

For those who still hadn’t made up their minds or just wanted something in the way of a laugh or some home grown drama there was Round 2 of the presidential debate. Mohamed Abduba Dida was your man if you wanted a good laugh or some proverbs and morally correctness. He at one point asked ‘Do you expect a thief to accept that they have stolen?  He was not the only one to respond to a question with a question or proverb of his own as Raila Odinga too was in the mood to throw verbal missiles of his own when he pointedly stated: 'You cannot allow a Hyena to protect your goats' To which Uhuru turned and glared angrily.

But then at one point the one time teacher asked a question that made me wonder where he’d been or why he was not more sensitive, he turned to the PM and asked something to the effect of: If you felt you’d been robbed during the last election, why didn’t you just hold on and continue to fight, why did you stop it. Now to me this was as straight forward and unfeeling as one can get.

 

I soon got over my displeasure and shock of that question as things got significantly hotter when the tough and emotive question of land was brought to the fore. The drama made its entrance here and in the portion accorded to corruption as throughout the debate the candidates were allowed to fire questions at each other and boy did they just. They held each other accountable and forced each other to clear the air on several nagging questions such as the salvos fired at Uhuru Kenyatta - who last week had said that he would not be attending the debate. One came when the candidates addressed corruption the former finance minister was asked about the ‘typing errors’ that had lost significant sums of money, then came the questions on land and the fact that his family owned anywhere from a whole province to half the nation- which he denied. All in all, the TNA candidate dodged the missiles well, coming out of it alive and more so having won the admiration of more than a few citizens. The son of Jomo did however admit after much pressure that he did own 30,000 acres in Taita-Taveta County land which the citizens have demanded back if he is to have any hope of gaining their votes...

In these the penultimate days of politicking the TV ads are now played more often than most others, the candidates are releasing documentaries on themselves and their good deeds - just yesterday while doing my almost ritual channel surfing I saw one on Gideon Mbuvi commonly referred to as Sonko which detailed the Senate seat candidates good deeds.

As this is an election period you can expect at least a little drama whether it be in first time historical debates or in constantly changing alliances and partnerships, as with any election worldwide endorsements and public pronouncements of support are important and could just give a candidate an extra and at times much needed boost; this is what happened just yesterday for TNA’s gubernatorial Jimnah Mbaru as Rachel Shebesh and Sonko jumped ship- not from one party to another but from one candidate to his rival. The newly lonely Ferdinand Waititu was left in the dust after a falling out within the party after it was reported that Waititu was secretly campaigning for Bishop Margret Wanjiru for the Senate seat on the ODM ticket.

Above all else politicians, the clergy, IEBC, radio and TV presenters, writers and comedians – and just plain everyone else has called for a peaceful election day and the days weeks and months after. There are those who still feel unsafe and fearful of a repeat of 2007 and have chosen to depart for safer shores with some of those outside the country refusing to come in. Along with those fleeing in fear there are those that are trooping back to their home counties to cast their ballots on Monday.

One Last thing:
With the eyes of the world trained on us come Monday we must be safe and realize not only that are votes and voices are important and that we must vote for a new leader not based on his or our own ethnicity- that’s what started the whole problem 5 years ago- but based on the best person for the job; let our vote be for the candidate whose integrity and ideals, promises and record are the best for the country as a whole, someone who will be honest and who’ll chose to feed and better the nation and not himself. Someone who’ll be accessible to us and accountable to us and if he or she falters at any time we should know that we can and should hold him/her accountable for their errors.

 

   Get Out & Vote because if you don’t you have little right to complain about the results.