What swearing-in Raila Odinga would have meant

Initially the hype by NASA stalwarts was that Raila Odinga would be sworn in as the President of Kenya in parallel inauguration at Uhuru Park, Nairobi.

The aim? To protest what firebrand Miguna-Miguna calls the “coronation of Uhu-Ruto” or in non-acerbic terms, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s inauguration.

NASA has maintained that the president was not validly elected both in the August 8 and October 26 polls. The Supreme Court annulled the first election in favour of a Raila Odinga petition in a 4-2 verdict that found that the election to have been invalidated by irregularities and illegalities and ordered a fresh one within 60 days.

Raila and Odinga and his running mate Kalonzo Musyoka withdrew from the repeat election insisting that the Independent Boundaries and Electoral Commission had not met NASA’s irreducible minimums. The minimums were basically the demands the opposition required the IEBC to have in place before in could participate in the elections.

Had NASA carried out its threat to swear in Raila Odinga as the President today, most likely the authorities would have sealed off Uhuru Park, the venue, with running battles between the police and NASA supporters reminiscent of the of the ones that characterized his return from the US a fortnight ago when his supporters walked to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to welcome but police would not hear of it.

Six people died in the confrontations.

A Raila parallel inauguration would have been viewed as the establishment of a parallel government, therefore a crossing of the redline. It would have been the ultimate act of deviance

Heightening the clamor for secession by some politicians.