In order to make headway, Nasa team should moderate its demands

If Nasa’s abrupt withdrawal from the October 26 repeat presidential election was meant to catch the IEBC flat-footed, that is exactly what it did.

But even the most carefully plotted plans get upended from the most unexpected quarters.

The day following Raila Odinga’s bombshell, maverick candidate Ekuru Aukot won court orders to have his name listed as a contestant for the repeat election.

The IEBC then announced five other minnows who were on the ballot on August 8 were also free to contest.

One of them who has since been pronounced bankrupt was disqualified.

DISARRAY

Nasa’s gambit was to throw the October 26 election into disarray, then force IEBC to call for a “fresh” election in 90 days.

There were musings about a “caretaker” government in the interim, the nature of which was woolly.

Alas, as the legal arguments raged, Aukot unexpectedly pulled the rug from under everybody’s feet.

There would be an election on October 26 after all, IEBC decreed.

That is not good for Nasa, whose repeated position is that no election will happen on that date.

FORM 24A

Worse, the IEBC made it clear unless Raila accompanied his withdrawal letter with a form called 24A, his withdrawal had no legal effect.

In other words, he would still be on the ballot. That would seem a moot point now.

Raila is adamant he won’t participate in the election and won’t recognise it as legitimate. And typical of the man, he said he wouldn’t sign any form 24A.

Yet the Nasa leader has boxed himself into a corner in the mistaken expectation that the election would be cancelled and that IEBC would hold fresh nominations and a fresh election.

POLL

Most painful of all for Nasa, Uhuru Kenyatta seems to have gotten a free pass.

If Raila’s attempts to have the poll cancelled fail, his presidential aspirations may be over as Kalonzo Musyoka will be staking his claim in Nasa for 2022.

Nasa leaders say without blinking there will be no election on October 26.

They are not even talking about a boycott. How they will make a gazetted election not to happen, only they know.

CHALLENGES

Certainly IEBC will face enormous challenges running the poll in Raila’s strongholds. Plus the voters there will not be interested to vote.

Yet how Nasa imagines it can compel the rest of the country not to vote – from Garissa to Marsabit to Kajiado to Meru to Kirinyaga to Isebania – is one of the wonders of the coalition’s strategists.

It is likely the whole standoff was over lack of campaign money. Early on, Nasa put out an M-Pesa paybill which it encouraged its supporters to contribute to.

After several weeks, the account had reportedly raised close to Sh20 million. A tidy sum, but small potatoes for a presidential campaign.

AMBITIOUS CAMPAIGN

A more ambitious campaign was to rope in Nasa MPs, with newcomers required to contribute Sh300,000 each, while older members were to pony up Sh500,000.

In the best case scenario, perhaps Sh50 million was collected; still far short of Jubilee’s kitty.

Meanwhile, the national government threw a spanner in the works when it held up the transfer of county funds.

The word from up there was that the government did not want Nasa governors transferring part of the money to Nasa campaigns.

DEMANDS

Nasa’s main demands were impractical, and they knew it. Which raised the question of what the coalition’s real aims were.

To cancel the contracts with IEBC’s technology vendor OT-Morpho and ballot printer Al-Ghurair was unrealistic given the tight timelines.

And who would replace Safaricom in transmitting results given its extensive mobile coverage?

Removing CEO Ezra Chiloba is one thing, but sacking all 290 returning officers and top secretariat staff would be irresponsible.

TARGET

A better target was Jubilee’s election laws amendments Bill. I, too, oppose it.

There is the question of legitimacy if Uhuru wins. Yet legitimacy is about numbers.

That cloud will only be cleared if he gets the numbers he won on August 8.

Warigi is a socio-political commentator [email protected]