Richard Onyonka after winning the Kitutu Chache South parliamentary seat. [Photo/nation.co.ke]
NASA politicians are celebrating IEBC’s declaration that Ford Kenya candidate Richard Onyonka won the Kitutu Chache South parliamentary seat in a by-election, despite criticising the same body for conducting other polls.Onyonka won the seat with a voter turnout of 37%, with Jubilee candidate Antony Kibagendi coming second with 23% of the votes cast. This voter turnout is lower than what was witnessed in the October 26 presidential election that NASA has been claiming makes the result lack legitimacy. The same NASA leaders who are applauding the work done by IEBC in conducting the by-election, which was caused by the death of a Jubilee candidate in a road accident ahead of the August 8 general election, are now pushing county assemblies in Opposition-controlled areas to pass motions of not recognising the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta. The county assemblies are using false statements to make a flawed argument that IEBC did not conduct a free and fair election on October 26. Here’s what part of their motion says: “AWARE that on 8th August 2017 and 26th October 2017 IEBC conducted illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic presidential elections;RECOGNIZING the fact that the turnout for the presidential elections was thirty percent or thereabouts of the total number of all the registered voters in Kenya and therefore the President cannot by delegation or otherwise, be properly vested with the people’s sovereign power and authority…” Any Kenyan knows that those statements are false. Only the Supreme Court can make a judgment on whether IEBC conducted a credible election, not politicians with vested interests. Second, the voter turn out in the October 26 polls was not 30%, it was 38.84%. IEBC conducted the elections as ordered by the Supreme Court.
Because the declarations by some county assemblies are based on inaccurate information, the pronouncements will not amount to anything. If the Supreme Court throws away the current petitions for lacking merit, as it is largely expected to do, then President Kenyatta will be sworn in.
This behaviour shows that Raila and other leaders in NASA are just hypocrites and their criticism of IEBC is not honest. They are just using IEBC as a scapegoat for losing the presidential election.