Raila may be lying, but overlap in IEBC and Jubilee thinking is odd

When you get onto a plane, part of the ritual is to be briefed on safety measures in the unlikely event of emergency oxygen supply dropping. In the same way, we must now start planning for elections in the unlikely eventuality that they may be delayed.

The story begins way back when the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy called for street protests to demand removal of the previous polls body. The storm had been gathering, the lynchpin according to Raila and his team being that the Isaack Hassan team manipulated the 2013 election to give President Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto underserved round-one win. They of course also dismissed as unfair the ruling by the Supreme Court confirming Isaack's verdict.

Mistrust

But then it did not help matters that because of this seed of distrust planted in the heart of Opposition supporters, when Raila made the call, Uhuru and Ruto dismissed it. Through their henchmen Aden Duale, Kipchumba Murkomen and Kithure Kindiki, they cunningly argued that the Opposition must use Parliament. Eventually, when Kenya featured on CNN with violent dispersal of street protests, there was a change of tack.

The next big war was Jubilee's push for amendment allowing for manual intervention should digital technology fail (or was it if the technology is failed?) during voting. Again the suspicion within CORD, which has now been taken up by the National Super Alliance, rose. It did not help matters that the appointment of current IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati was tainted by the fact that he didn't do well in the interviews and the one who topped was shoved aside for political exigencies.

The other disagreement between Jubilee and NASA is whether results announced at polling stations are final. Jubilee insiders claim if this is allowed, any presiding officer can decide which figures to announce and we would have to abide by that. Of course this is contrary to the expectation that there is sufficient firewalling to avoid inflation of votes at polling stations, padding of votes at the tallying centre, and introduction of 'dead voters' into the Presidential votes.

Back to back with this was Jubilee's attack on Raila over the announcement he would have his own parallel tallying centre. On this again, IEBC chairman spoke the same language as Jubilee, yet it is obvious that every election year each of the main parties and newsrooms set up their own tallying centres. The worry here obviously is that Raila would declare his own results. But you can imagine how his supporters saw the overlap between positions taken by Jubilee and IEBC.

Dispute

Then the latest, which got into the court files yesterday; the contentious award of a tender for the printing of ballot papers to Al-Ghurair firm based in Dubai. Raila makes the outrageous claim ballot papers have been pre-marked in favour of Uhuru and Ruto by the company, which he also claims is linked to State House.

Chebukati complains that a court process may delay printing of ballots which was, according to him, to start today. Reading between the lines, you get the feeling that he is asking Raila not to go to court for the sake of the election date, but nonetheless, the Chief Justice assured us yesterday the ruling will not affect the August 8 date.

Uhuru and Ruto once again dismissed this as Raila's usual propaganda, just like the claim he made last week that army officers were being trained in some matter to do with elections in Western Kenya. In fact, Ruto said Raila could as well be given the tender whilst some of Jubilee leaders claimed he had a preferred printer in mind. As we said before, the seed of doubt on the integrity of the 2017 outcome has been planted in the Kenyan mind, and is being watered daily by the statements politicians make.

It is now left for Chebukati and his team to redeem themselves or to pile more fat that will be used to grill them by the loser in this election, particularly if it's NASA. Still, questions will be asked on the coincidence of similarity in thinking by Jubilee and IEBC and why NASA's is always the contrary one. They say when two people say the same things, one is not thinking. Who knows?

Mr Tanui is the Deputy Editorial Director and Managing Editor, The Standard