Time for parties to rethink how they nominate their candidates

There is something awfully wrong with Kenyan politicians.

Can’t they ever accept defeat even when they have lost fair and square? Watching their behaviour after the party nominations was so depressing.

Hardly anyone of them was ready to concede defeat.

The truth of the matter is that they were responsible for the same malpractices they were complaining about when they lost, like stuffing of ballot boxes, colluding with returning officers, and multiple voting by supporters.

The Kenyan voter is far from an angel either. He is very much to blame for the problems we have in our politics.

THINGS GO WRONG

He can be very in disciplined and unruly. Yet he has this penchant for passing the buck to the parties and the IEBC when things go wrong. The parties can only do so much.

The contestants tend to put too much store in politics as if there is no life beyond that.

Must old men like Maina Kamanda of Starehe and Henry Kosgey of Nandi and Oburu Oginga of Bondo forever have to be on the ballot? Exchanging brickbats with men as young as their sons?

ODM seems to have a very soft spot for Oburu, who is always getting his way in Bondo in strange outcomes.

In 2013 he lost the governorship race but was promptly nominated to Parliament (the man who beat him was denied the ODM ticket).

GIFTED CERTIFICATE

This time, he was reported to have lost in the Bondo primary but was mysteriously gifted the certificate.

Jubilee also issued Kamanda a certificate in questionable circumstances. He was facing off in Starehe with the musician Jaguar.

We have to rethink the whole process of party nominations. All the parties have totally messed up their primaries, even after the Big Two – Jubilee and ODM – collected hundreds of millions of shillings in nominations fees.

There were too many shameful irregularities. In Migori, two gubernatorial aspirants were separately declared winners. The same happened in Kisumu.

Then the returning officers switched off their phones and vanished. The rural home of ODM Mbita MP Millie Odhiambo was reportedly burnt down.

RELENTLESSLY

Betrayal was everywhere in the air as party certificates were sold or issued under the table. Bernard Kiala, who has done heavy duty for Wiper by relentlessly fighting Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua, was startled when he was denied a direct ticket for the Machakos gubernatorial race.

The beneficiary seems to be Wavinya Ndeti of Kathiani, who recently defected from another party. Kiala’s sponsor, Senator Johnstone Muthama, has gone cold on the Wiper party.

Parties should not pretend they can hold democratic primaries.

Not a single one can. Perhaps we should just go the British way where the big parties simply pick their parliamentary candidates from names selected by local committees. Those who don’t make it can run as independents.

Talking of which, everybody predicts a floodgate of independent candidates during this General Election.

AVOID NOMINATION

Small parties are also reckoning that their prospects will improve. In future, they are likely to benefit through candidates who want to avoid the nomination confusion in the big parties.

The crushing victories registered by Mike Sonko in Nairobi and Ferdinand Waititu in Kiambu should prompt a reassessment of voter priorities.

We are always complaining that we want politics based on issues. It doesn’t look like we care much for that.

Maybe, there is something in the populism of this eccentric duo that needs explaining. Incidentally are their academic papers likely to pass muster with the IEBC?

Amid all the chaos and disarray, there was some uplifting news.

DECLARED WINNER

An ordinary Joe called Cyrus Owino, who had previously been in ODM, was elected the Jubilee nominee in the Kahawa Wendani ward of Kiambu County.

In Turbo constituency in Uasin Gishu, one Kevin Okwara was declared winner of the Jubilee primary amid protests by the losers that he was an “outsider”.

Jubilee headquarters did the right thing to insist he was the victor.

There were intriguing complaints from many candidates like Kabogo, Nairobi’s Rachel Shebesh and Uasin Gishu Governor Jackson Mandago of a hidden hand manipulating the Jubilee nominations.

A hidden hand focused solely on 2022. Might Uhuru Kenyatta have lost the grasp of his party to this hidden hand?

Mandago was battling businessman Zedekiah Buzeki in a contest that boiled down to rivalry between the Nandi and the Keiyo.

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