Where was good, old tyranny of numbers when Uhuru needed it?

However unfortunate it was, the police siege on Kisumu, Migori, Siaya and Homa Bay counties was hardly surprising.

Residents of these counties have often found themselves on the receiving end of State terror because of their anti-establishment tag and a propensity to express their grievances a little more dramatically than others.

Going into last week’s repeat presidential election, there was already a sense of foreboding here after earlier police response to a wave of protests arising from the disputed August 8 presidential election left several people, including children, dead. Of course, the police did not disappoint.

But the police brutality in the four counties was probably the only thing predictable about a repeat presidential election that was remarkable for debunking the many political myths that have passed for Gospel truth for some time now. In the grand scheme of things, Luo Nyanza was supposed to be the lightning rod for insignificant disaffection with the establishment. It turned out that the grievance has since spread to other areas, and that the State is not taking that lightly.

SEVEN MILLION VOTES

The Ukambani counties voted with their feet, relatively quietly, but the police still found some reason to shoot one person in Machakos. Another person was shot dead by police in Bungoma which, like its sister counties in the former Western Province, erupted.

As at the time of writing this column, it was clear that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) would be hard-pressed to explain how the over seven million votes it had recorded for President Uhuru Kenyatta matched the short queues witnessed at many polling stations across the country.

The notion of tyranny of numbers – an impregnable votebank somewhere in Rift Valley and central Kenya that easily imposed its will at the ballot in the past two elections – was being exposed as a possible vote-rigging lie.

TYRANNY

If the tyranny couldn’t show up in full force to spare Mr Kenyatta the blushes of another controversial victory in an election he had set himself a target of over 10 million votes, it mostly likely didn’t exist in the first place.

Then there is the narrative that a significant number of voters always turn out to cast their ballots only for the presidential candidate, explaining the large variations in polling station or constituency vote tallies for this position and the other, say Member of Parliament. Where were these choosy voters when the President needed them most?

In their line of questioning around the fate of the remaining five ballot papers, two of the Supreme Court judges hearing the last presidential election petition appeared to have their reservations about the existence of these voters as well.

And the lawyers representing the IEBC and the President could quite find a name for them. One called them ‘stray’ ballots and another ‘rejected’ ballots. The outcome of the repeat election has provided a clearer answer.

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