After The Long Wait : The President-Elect Has Arrived.

On Saturday 9^th Kenyans again rose early eager for the news that had taken a long slow week to arrive. They would finally know conclusively and officially who their president was. The announcement was made and almost immediately people filled the streets of their counties, cities and villages wearing any article of red clothing they could find in celebration of the announcement that their preferred candidate and son of the countries founding father Jomo Kenyatta had ascended and returned to the corridors of state house this time as president.

The other 5 million Kenyans- or more if you count the other defeated candidates- were in a more sombre mood retreating indoors to smart in defeat and lick their wounds and while some watched as Kenyatta received his certificate from Issack Hassan then proceeded to the Catholic University to make his acceptance speech, basking in the glory and jubilation of their win surrounded by their friends and family.
The new president is scheduled to be sworn in on the 26^th of this month but there is a wrinkle in the president-elect’s plans as the runner up in the elections-otherwise known as loser- has taken his grievances with how the elections were handled, to allegations of ballot boxes stuffing and even disappearance, to the failure of the BVR kits that cost Kenyans billions of shillings.

The IEBC fell back on the age old method of vote counting- by hand. This election tested the patience of Kenyans like no other, with many people choosing to stay at home crunching the numbers with calculators in hand. Watching as each centre’s tally coloured the map either red or orange.

Given these discrepancies Prime Minister Raila Odinga saw no better more effective option than to announce- on the 9^th- that he would be going to court to appeal the election bodies’ decision to name Kenyatta the countries 4^th president. To this end the PM assembled a team of 10 of the best lawyers at his disposal to do battle on his behalf knowing that the judgement of Chief Justice Willy Mutunga and his team of at least 5 judges will be final.

When he received a copy of the presidential certificate from the IEBC’s chairman he said that the process would be unbiased, free and fair. He also urged the media to be present at the hearings. This was virtually unheard of in the past when judicial business was conducted behind tightly closed doors and far from the media’s discerning spotlight.

With the signing into law of the new constitution in 2010 the country and judiciary has come a long way in regaining the trust of the people by actions rather than words.

While the case goes before the court and information sourced, numbers are crunched and all holes and errors are exposed all in the hopes of finding the truth of the matter the president-elect and his vice president have been rather busy first meeting their predecessor then crossing over to all matters financial calling in on the finance minister, members of the business community and the secretary general of KOTU. They went on to host the Russian envoy to Kenya Alexander Makerenko.

 

It is virtually unheard of that newly elected leaders should have a full diary of activities such as those above the country’s constitution says:

·         A person elected as President in accordance with this Constitution shall assume office as President as soon as he is declared to be elected.
·         A person assuming the office of President shall, before entering upon the office, take and subscribe the oath of allegiance and such oath for the due execution of his office as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament.

 It was in this due to this frenetic, rearing to go attitude that Ababu Namwamba chastised the president elect while in Kibera for assuming the role of the president before being sworn in. And cautioned Mr. Kenyatta to wait until the matter had reached it’s conclusion in a court of law.