An Assessment of Kenya’s Electoral Situation Ahead of the 9 August 2022 General Elections
What is this Message about and Why Do I Write It?
On Sunday, 23 January 2022, Musalia Mudavadi held his Amani National Congress party’s National Delegates Conference at the Bomas of Kenya in Langata. Unexpectedly for me, he dropped a bombshell that shook our despairing, cynical apathy in the context of Kenya’s social and spiritual situation. He compelled us to think truthfully about the place we are at: “Tusidanganyane!” (“Let us not lie to one another, let us not deceive one another”) – and by extension, “Tusijidanganye!” (“Let us not deceive ourselves!”).
This message poignantly resonated with me: on three different occasions (March 2013, August 2017 and October 2017), I had voted for Uhuru Kenyatta for president, joining millions of other Kenyan voters in making it possible for him to become president. Then I watched the same man whom the electorate had vested with power in the context of a democratic constitutional order making efforts to abrogate the 2010 Constitution through an extra-constitutional process styled the Building Bridges Initiative. I had witnessed, with impotent bewilderment, this man unilaterally cast aside his Deputy, who had mobilized millions of votes for the victorious Uhuru Kenyatta-William Ruto presidential ticket. I had seen Kenyatta embrace a perennial insurrectionist known as Raila Odinga and virtually enthrone him as a co-president, opening unrestricted access to this insurrectionist to Kenya’s state resources built by the sweat of millions of toiling, impoverished ordinary Kenyan people.
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