President Uhuru Kenyatta and NASA leader Raila Odinga. [Photo/ The Star]
As we approach the presidential election rerun on October 26, there has been pressure from pro-NASA activists and other partisan groups that President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga should hold talks about the election. Even IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati, the supposed referee in the contest, has stepped out of his mandate to ask the two leaders to meet him and discuss Thursday’s election. The chairman, who has been trusted by Kenyans with the mandate of presiding over free and fair elections, seems to have forgotten his professional job description. He is now entering into the dirty arena of politics. His main job is not to facilitate mediation talks between the leaders of Jubilee and NASA — it is to conduct an election in accordance with the law, as ordered by the Supreme Court. The two party leaders can only meet to deliberate on national issues after the people of Kenya have decided their next president during Thursday’s election. Not before. Luckily, the president is aware of this. That is why he has promised to meet Raila, who is keen to disrupt the elections even after abandoning the exercise, after the polls are held. “The Constitution has vested all power in the people and it is the people to decide the direction the country will take by voting on Thursday,” President Kenyatta said when meeting all Mt Kenya FM stations at State House. “I can listen to whatever he wants after the elections,” he said, adding that Raila and himself could not decide on behalf of 45 million Kenyans.