With a week to go, so many questions left unanswered

With the printing of ballot boxes containing names of NASA candidates Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, it is probable that barring anything else, the election will go on as planned on October 26. But as one Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) official wondered last week; do the circumstances surrounding the exercise guarantee a free and fair exercise? That is highly doubtful.

First, the repeat election is still fraught with many challenges, starting with the many cases in court whose outcome will have a huge bearing on the process. There are many questions left unanswered.

With Raila Odinga having ‘withdrawn’ from the race, should preparations for the exercise go ahead? While the Jubilee Party is campaigning without a care in the world, Raila Odinga’s followers know that the election won’t take place.

What are the implications, given that Raila came second in the last three elections? Can his withdrawal be wished away?

Should his withdrawal be treated as a political, rather than a legal challenge? The importance of this election can be seen from the general mood across the country where things have been at a standstill for the last month. The political stalemate is costing the country’s economy billions of shillings in lost business opportunities and idle man-hours. Already, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics has lowered economic growth prospects by nearly a percentage point. Gross Domestic Product expanded by 3.3 per cent in the second quarter from 3.5 per cent in the same period last year, the slowest quarterly growth since 2009 and it could get worse.

Meanwhile, foreigners have dumped stock worth Sh35 billion at the Nairobi Securities Exchange because of the volatility of the market. The country needs to return to normalcy. Like all other elections, this is a watershed moment for the country. Getting a consensus on the sticky issues will no doubt help avert a crisis and possibly, a disaster.

Nobody wants a bungled election; not the Jubilee Party which believes that the annulment was not justified; not the NASA coalition which fears that going to elections with its ‘irreducible minimums’ unaddressed will gift Jubilee another fraudulent victory; not the IEBC which is keen to demonstrate that they have learnt their lessons and that they have what it takes to conduct a clean election; and certainly not Kenyans who are weary of the garrulous politicians and are eager to get back their lives.