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The Economics of 0.01 and the price of democracy amidst suffering

However, the interpretation of the results thereof is a subjective exercise that can easily be abused to deceive. For correct interpretation, we must observe for relationships, trends, patterns, comparatives with baseline data and contextualise any known facts around the data collection environment. Even with that, professional judgement and present or past experiences need to be considered to arrive at the correct conclusion.

With that in mind, a careful conceptualisation of the events around the declaration of the 2022 presidential election has the hallmarks of an axis of evil. For avoidance of doubt, let us re-visit the events at Bomas and Serena on the afternoon of August 15

In the ensuing melee, four dissenting commissioners disowned the results declared by their chair. This fact is very significant for this analysis. Later, their comprehensive statement translated a 'suspicious' 100.01 per cent into some 142,000 votes, hence opaque results. Despite the arithmetic absurdity, Kenyans started asking questions and once again plunging our democracy into a trial.

But was 0.01 per cent equaling 142,000 votes a random number or simply an honest arithmetical challenge? With the benefit of the Azimio's and other petitions seeking to annul the results, this number takes a prominent analytical significance. IEBC official results indicate actual voter turnout as 14,326,751; valid votes 14,213,137; and rejected ballots at 113,614.

On August 10, IEBC chair Wafula Chebukati initially reported the voter turnout as per KIEMS kits data as 65.4 per cent, before correcting it 30 in less than minutes later to 64.6 per cent, at 14,164,561 of registered 22,120,458 voters. Again 65.4 per cent error is very significant in this analysis.

Based on the petitions filed, it turns out 0.01 per cent equaling 142,000 was neither random nor a mathematical error. From actual tallied votes, William Ruto won by 233,211 votes at 50.49 per cent. The constitutional threshold for a candidate to be declared president-elect is 50 per cent +1. Simple arithmetic will confirm that around 140,000 votes is the magical number either to force a re-run or give Raila Odinga a slight edge to a win.

For example, if you add 140,000 to Raila's 6,942,930 votes and substract the same number from Ruto's 7,176,141 as given by IEBC, the ratios change to 49.83 and 49.50 per cents for Raila and Ruto respectively. The filed petitions insist on a voter turnout of 65.4 per cent from KIEMS kits. Based on this alone, conspiracists assert that IEBC cannot account for about 140,028 votes. Dividing the margin of win by half plus the 33,203 alleged extra ballots for the presidential election over other elections in eight counties, we get 149,808 votes!

Another big misrepresentation is on the interpretation of the ratios to advance the logic that the election was very close. This has been extended to conclude that almost half of the voters who cast their ballot in favour of Raila will be excluded from government should the court confirm Ruto's win. The reverse is also true. It is also naive to imagine there won't be some errors on either side in tallying and collating numbers from 46,229 polling stations.

However, the law of probabilities ensures some errors will cancel off and impact significantly diminishes when pooled into total votes, especially in determining the 50 per cent threshold. This is unless there was a systemic mischief in large enough sample. That notwithstanding, the Constitution envisions that a single vote can separate two equally competitive candidates and confer full power, authority and privileges of the presidency to one and deny the other. After all, isn't that what democracy is about?

Legal deception

Without delving into the legal merits or demerits of the matter, one cannot fail to notice the selective application of the law across the petitions. The Azimio petition crystalises on Articles 81(e)(iii)(iv)(v); 138(3)(c), 138(10); and 86(d) as read together with 10(2)(a)(c) and Sections 5(1), 8; and 2nd Schedule para 5&7 of the IEBC Act. The other law is the IEBC vs Maina Kiai 2017 case.

The substance of this selective application of law is that the presidential election can only and must be tallied, verified and collated by IEBC as a corporate. This implies that the chair as the gazetted Returning Officer for the presidential elections is toothless. The truth is almost each of the eighteen chapters of the Constitution require a National Legislation to give it a breath of life. The legislations are accompanied by regulations, policies and procedure manuals to remove any inconsistencies and ambiguity.

The IEBC Act of 2011 not only establishes it as a corporate but also creates a secretariat headed by the secretary (Sec. 10) to the commission and the CEO. He/she is also the accounting officer. For smooth operations, Section 11(A) assigns the commissioners the responsibility of policy and oversight while the secretariat runs the day-to-day administrative activities. In any election, the commission must comply with the Constitution and at least 11 National Legislations and 4 sets of regulations all originating from the Constitution itself. These legal instruments are available on its website.

The commission conducted a total of 2,164 out of the possible 2,172 elections due on August 9, 2022. This is broken down into 291 presidential elections, 286 MP elections; 45, 47 and 47 governors, senator and Woman Representative respectively; and 1,448 MCA elections. On simple probabilities, how is it possible that the Commission did a stellar job in all these elections only to commit a mortal travesty on the will of the same Wanjiku's in a single afternoon at the national tallying centre at Bomas?

How do we accept the outcomes of at least 87 per cent of the elections from the same commission and totally reject only the presidential?

Equally, if our democracy is enhanced through our electoral systems, the fruits of democracy can be robbed from the people through abuse and infiltration of its institutions for political expediency.