Dear MPs, refrain from drafting laws to settle scores; you will hurt our future!

This week has been without a doubt the most jaw-dropping since the political temperatures begun soaring shortly before the August 8^th polls.

Politics aside, there is a serious deficit of values in this country. That a young man such as Embakasi East MP would stand on a podium and attack another presidential candidate with unprintable words and the people cheer is just absurd.

And if you think Babu Owino crossed the line, you probably didn’t hear Nairobi governor “respond” to him. Mike Sonko not only called the MP unbelievable names, he threatened him with rape!

At this rate, Ezekiel Mutua should classify political rallies in Kenya PG 18. It was really sad to see people cheering as the governor promised to send people to sodomise a Member of Parliament.

This vengeance culture our politicians are displaying is not only setting a bad example but will completely destroy the fabric of our nation. An eye for an eye will make us all blind.

It’s the same thing playing out between NASA and Jubilee regarding the October 26^th presidential repeat-elections. Both sides coming with strong positions and none is yielding.

First, NASA presented what they call irreducible minimums; a set of issues they want IEBC to tackle before the October 26^th polls. While some of the issues raised therein are legit and should be looked into; there are some however that can’t be implemented given the Constitutional time frame.

There’s little or no time for IEBC to issue tender for new ballot printing or an IT firm to replace Safran that they claim interfered directly. Perhaps an independent audit would suffice here.

Also, the chest thumping that there will be no elections is completely uncalled for and may be interpreted as an attempt at chiding the other side and can’t therefore lead to amicable resolutions.

Jubilee on the other hand decided to “respond” to NASA’s irreducible minimums by drafting an elections Bill that appears to reverse all the gains the country has made in this area.

Firstly, the Bill is not in the interest of the public but an attempt by Jubilee to assert itself. The laws they are now changing were made in a bi-partisan way with law makers from both sides.

Secondly, Jubilee MPs went ahead to change other bits that were completely not in contention, like watering down the qualification of the Chair to make it easy for the deputy chair take over where chair is missing. Reducing quorum from five to three.

The Bill further gives preeminence to the manual tallying over electronic tallying. Also any transmission hitches will not nullify results as announced by respective presiding officers. This completely erodes the transparency as voters are not able to see the scanned forms 34Bs transmitted together with results.

Additionally, the Bill wants the requirement that forms have particular features to prevent mischief be ignored. Basically the Bill is responding to the “illegalities and irregularities” in the Supreme Court judgment.

In short, majority of the changes in this Bill are not drafted in good faith and are purely done to ensure Jubilee presidential candidate is assured of zero nullification should NASA claim their votes are rigged again.

Here’s a free advice to the Jubilee lawmakers. When you start drafting laws for an individual, you’re participating in the making of a despot. All dictators, from Amin Dada to our very own Moi used laws drafted in Parliament to legitimize their actions.

Resist the need to be a sycophant and debate laws that will serve future generations rather than short term-reactive laws that are meant to put your opponents (NASA) where you feel they belong.

In the end our Jubilee sycophants should remember it took nearly a decade to reverse section 2A of the old Constitution and it happened at the pleasure of former President Moi.

As a nation we must find a way to fix the value system in this country that Politicians find it impossible to insult each other in public or create laws to settle scores.

Posted by Mzalendo Editor on Sept. 29, 2017

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