Time to move on and refocus on what matters to the people

Politicians and lawyers will spend the next few days analysing the judgement that, early this month, annulled President Uhuru Kenyatta’s re-election. There is a stampede on TV talk shows as politicians and lawyers try to prove a point or two. While that is expected, it should not be allowed to degenerate into a smear campaign against the Judiciary. This newspaper believes that the judges of the Supreme Court acted in the best interest of the law of the land.

If nothing else, the ruling of the majority should remind us that the process matters as much as the outcome. Simply put; garbage in equals garbage out. It is also that in anything, even in a simple arithmetic sum, the process to derive the answer matters as much.

To disagree with the judges is not wrong, but to engage in a corrosive onslaught is absolutely repugnant. They have made their point (the majority and the dissenters) and nothing, not even threats to the judges, could possibly reverse that. It is time to move on.

Jubilee-allied senators have indicated they will file a case seeking orders to open the presidential ballot boxes used in the August 8 election and possibly have a recount of the votes.

While that might be perfectly legitimate, it is hard to see what purpose that would serve. The senators should simply let go, for what they seem determined to prove or achieve could end up opening a new can of worms. In their winding speeches, the President Uhuru Kenyatta's lawyers pleaded with Chief Justice David Maraga to order that the presidential ballot boxes remain in situ for the mandatory three-year period. It is

What is unacceptable is to turn the rerun into a referendum against the Supreme Court, the way the International Criminal Court (ICC) was condemned at the urging of Jubilee leaders in 2013 when President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto faced crimes against humanity charges in relation with the 2007/08 post-election violence.

The charges, however, were dropped for lack of evidence. Leaders must realise that to continue criticizing the Judiciary is injudicious. And that in the run-up to the October 26 elections, Kenyans deserve a real choice; a choice accorded by the strict adherence to the tenets of democracy and fair play. By any measure, the rerun is another election and deserves seriousness. So, rather than ridicule or disparage the Supreme Court, politicians should sell their agendas to the people of Kenya.

Time is ripe for both sides of the political divide to concentrate on issues of national importance. The bitterness that has so far been witnessed is not good for national cohesion, yet that should be the ideal aim of any leader worth his weight in gold.

Quite frankly, all parties to the case derived a lesson from what was an elaborate judicial process never seen before on the continent. In truth, much of the reckoning was for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). It must have dawned on them that an election is not just an event where the end matters more than the means. No, it is a process.

To the politicians, especially Jubilee, it means that a win must be convincing in many ways, not just in the result and that fidelity to the law is supreme. While NASA should celebrate the fruits of the 2010 Constitution, it should exercise restraint, especially in its calls to remove certain staff at the IEBC. The electoral agency is an independent institution and no doubt, it will activate its internal HR processes to punish those who dropped the ball.

To the country and the region, it is a testament of the maturity of our democracy that is anchored by a clear separation of powers between the three arms of government. Indeed, democracy flourishes when these institutions prudently exercise their authority.

For Kenya, the Judiciary has been a bulwark against an overbearing Executive and a malevolent Legislature. And yet despite its arrogance of power, the Executive has acted with great restraint, unlike the Jubilee-majority Legislature which seems to be struggling to find a purpose. And finding that purpose demands that Jubilee MPs stop acting like the Executive’s errand boy which is the weakest link in our democracy.