HOW ELECTIONS WERE STOLEN UNDER OUR NOSE

The Presidential elections results started streaming in very well from the the very outset. The margin was quite substantive. We led the PNU by upwards of million of votes. Then suddenly, hell began breaking loose. The figures started looking very strange, coming mostly from the Mt Kenya region. The E.C.K Chairman Samuel Kivuitu began getting jittery. He behaved like someone who knew something we didn’t know. What had been a very organized exercise at the KICC began getting chaotic.

Our candidate and I watched everything from Pentagon House. William Ruto, Andrew Ligale, Henry Koskey and Caroli Omondi were our main people at the KICC. We watched them engage Kivuitu as things degenerated very steadily. It was clear someone was manipulating the election results. Raila and I left the Pentagon House to join our colleagues at the KICC. We encountered PNU officials who were literally directing the ECK Commissioners on what to do and what to announce. On the third day we went to KICC and found the Commissioners ready to announce Mwai Kibaki as the winner.

There was high tension. Martha Karua of PNU was almost belligerently urging them to announce. The country was palpably tense and there was speculations everywhere. The Government has stopped ECK from making any further live transmissions on the elections. The media houses were shut down. Armed policemen literally broke into the newsrooms and ejected journalists from their desks.TV Screens went blank. People across the country were no longer sure of what was happening. Eventually on this third day, Kivuitu announced that President Kibaki had won a second mandate beating Raila Odinga with a margin of slightly over 400,000 votes. Kalonzo Musyoka came third. Kivuitu himself would later say he was not sure of the results of the Presidential poll. He quipped rather cheekily that he had only announced what he had been told to announce. He did not say told by whom.

The election had just been stolen under our nose. It did not take us by surprise altogether. There had been signs everywhere. There had been talk of security people who were masquerading as PNU agents in many parts of the country. There were talk of of security agents disguised in civilian clothes as ECK officials. Kibaki had single handedly picked ECK officials only a few weeks from the polls. The country went into immediate rapture, our cellphones would not stop ringing. Our supporters across the country were in a foul mood.

It was clear they were not going to accept a situation where we were going to accept the election results. We met early the following morning and began demanding to be shown the election returns, especially from places like Tharaka Nithi. Our strategists advised us that we were in a catch 22 situation. An appeal against the election results could only be brought before the same Chief Justice who has presided over a chimeric swearing in. He would be the person to select the bench that would listen to our petition, It would be thrown out. We agreed that our strategy would be to exert political pressure. Either Kibaki would retreat or call for fresh elections.

Chaos began erupting every where in the country, its like they had a life of their own. Our efforts to quell the violence through our agents on the ground proved futile. Nobody was listening to them. They had been reduced to hopeless spectators. We were caught off guard when on January 08 2008 it was announced that Kalonzo Musyoka had joined Mwai Kibaki. They announced what they called a Partial Cabinet with Kalonzo as Vice president. We had obviously also delayed into reaching out to Kalonzo. This was a gross mistake on our part.

The announcement of the cabinet doused oil on the fires. Chaos went into high gear everywhere. People were calling us to have a parallel swearing in. we were told that a judge of the high court and section of the military were willing and ready to come to Uhuru park to swear in Raila Odinga as President. I never got to know the name of this judge or who in the military had been contacted. I was however firmly opposed to this route. I advised Raila that this would plunge the country into an even worse set up. This was a delicate moment. Inspite of the obvious injustice against us, we needed to place the country first.