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Fast forward to 2013, I still respect Raila but this time I supported the candidature of Martha Karua who had a dismal performance in the just concluded election and joined other Kenyans in supporting the winner – that is what democracy is all about – the majority having their way and the minority having their say.
Having cleared that out let’s move to the gist of this matter.
Raila needs to concede defeat like a statesman and leave the political landscape with his dignity that he has earned over several years fighting for the rights of the common man intact.
In any competition – politics included, there are winners and losers and Raila should accept that gracefully and move on.
There are several possible scenarios that can play out if Raila goes to court and I just want us to analyze some of them:
Scenario 1: The Courts Validate Uhuru’s win
This will happen when a majority of the 5 judge bench (I am saying 5 judges because the Supreme Court currently does not have a Vice President and that will mean it only has 6 judges. For them to make a determination an odd number of judges is needed to sit in a hearing so that when they finally make a vote there will be a clear winner with no possibility of a tie) uphold the decision of IEBC to declare Uhuru Kenyatta the winner of these elections.
Scenario 2: The courts find Raila team having credible evidence of flaws in the process and ordering a repeat election. This would mean that the entire process is repeated within 60 days and the eight candidates contest again.
Scenario 3: The court orders a scrutiny of the results and that results in a few changes that would in turn result in a second round duel between Kenyatta and Odinga.
Politics is a game of numbers so let’s crunch them.
In scenario 1 above, the result will be nothing but utter shame and a crescendo demise of Raila Odinga in the face of Kenyan politics. Something not befitting him having fought so hard for this country.
In scenario 2 and 3 however the game changes……….
You will probably hate me for saying this but then again let me just say it and let time be the judge:
In any case Uhuru goes for a re-run against Raila (Scenario 3) , Uhuru will win hands down. Here are the numbers:
The contested bit in the results is just a bunch of votes probably less than 300,000. These votes are the numbers that could have seen us go into a round two. As it is these votes could go any way to any of the eight contestants but let’s just for purposes of argument give 200,000 of them to Raila and 100,000 to Uhuru. That would leave Uhuru Kenyatta with about 5.9M votes, just slightly below the 50% mark and we would have a round two.
If you have been Keen enough you realized that most of Jubilee votes came from Central, Rift Valey and North Eastern Provinces with pockets of votes in Eastern, Kisii-Nyanza and Coast Provinces (swing counties) while the CORD team had the rest of the provinces and having an upper hand in the swing counties.
So as we go into Round 2 Uhuru already has 5.9 M and Raila has a few hundred thousand votes less.
Uhuru is already smelling power with the some of the state instruments already awarded to him. What will happen is that Uhuru will maintain what he already has and win the swing counties and beat Raila fair and square with an even bigger margin.
UhuRuto will not campaign in their home provinces – they will leave that for their lieutenants, the senators and MPs. Instead they will focus on the swing counties and this will be their message: “Do you want to stay in the cold? We already have one feet in statehouse – you either support us or stay out of government.”
And since the swing counties don’t have any tribal interests in the position as none of their own will be running they will rather support Uhuru Kenyatta someone they are already sure will win the elections than gamble with Raila.
Raila will loose the entire Eastern vote and not even Musyoka will deliver what he delivered in Round 1. Infact Ngilu will now have the upper hand here – the only reason the Kambas were supporting Raila was for them to be in government and Uhuru will be more likely to win for them that Raila so behind Ngilu they go.
In the same breadth Raila will loose the Luhya vote, the Kisii vote and part of the Coastal vote – infact all that Raila will be left with is the Luo vote and his portion of the Nairobi vote which again will be trimmed greatly such that if he manages to score 3M votes it will be a miracle.
In Scenario 2 however all the eight candidates will still be running but their current supporters will abandon them and it will be a race between Raila and Uhuru and what I just described above will play itself again.
Raila’s most honorable way out now is to concede.
Again this is my opinion, you got yours.
