Retired President Uhuru Kenyatta with the late ODM chief Raila Odinga. PHOTO/UGC.
By PATRICK MAYOYO
Retired President Uhuru Kenyatta’s declaration that the late ODM chief Raila Odinga really gained the 2022 presidential election just isn’t a press release that Kenya can merely swallow and transfer on from.
It calls for questions. 4 years after the election, Uhuru now says he stays satisfied that Raila gained. Talking at a Jubilee Occasion Nationwide Government Council assembly in Nairobi on 22 September 2026, he stated his celebration had carried out the whole lot attainable to assist Raila develop into president and that, in his view, Raila had gained the vote.
Uhuru additionally questioned how Azimio might win substantial numbers of parliamentary and county seats but lose the presidency. However right here is the uncomfortable query: if Raila gained, how did William Ruto find yourself being declared president?
The official file just isn’t ambiguous. The IEBC declared Ruto the winner with 7,176,141 votes, or 50.49 per cent, towards Raila’s 6,942,930 votes, or 48.85 per cent. The Supreme Court docket subsequently upheld the consequence. IEBC
That doesn’t forestall anyone from questioning the election. Elections will not be made professional merely as a result of an electoral fee says so. However extraordinary claims require proof. And Uhuru, of all individuals, has some explaining to do.
The primary query is about energy. Uhuru was not an bizarre spectator in 2022. He was the sitting president and had spent a decade on the centre of Kenya’s political and administrative institution.
He had overtly backed Raila’s presidential bid after their so-called handshake and was politically invested within the Azimio challenge. That makes his current declare notably hanging.
If he knew, whereas nonetheless in workplace, that Raila had gained however that the consequence was being subverted, what did he do about it? Did he order an investigation? Did he demand that the related safety companies set up whether or not electoral fraud had occurred?
Did he deploy the investigative and prosecutorial equipment of the state to ascertain who had allegedly interfered with the vote? Or did he merely watch the alleged theft occur and wait 4 years earlier than telling Kenyans that he knew the reality?
These will not be unfair questions. They go to the center of his credibility. And there’s an much more awkward downside. The Tuju-Chebukati allegations.
Within the aftermath of the 2022 election, Raphael Tuju, then Government Director of the Azimio Secretariat and a former Cupboard Secretary in Uhuru’s administration, acknowledged having conferences with then-IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati and commissioners Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu.
Tuju stated Chebukati had initiated a confidential assembly in Karen and challenged him to clarify what they mentioned. He additionally acknowledged being at Bomas through the tallying course of and stated he had gone there over considerations in regards to the dealing with of the presidential outcomes.
The late IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati. PHOTO/UGC.
Chebukati gave a radically totally different account. In affidavits filed through the 2022 presidential petition, and later in testimony earlier than the tribunal investigating IEBC commissioner Irene Masit, Chebukati alleged that Tuju and others tried to steer the fee to reasonable the leads to Raila’s favour or power a run-off. He additional alleged that compensation was supplied. Tuju denied the allegations.
These are competing allegations, not established findings of truth. However they elevate a devastatingly easy query for the political institution of the time.
If there was a real try and bribe or improperly affect the electoral fee, why was it not subjected to a full legal investigation?
If Uhuru’s authorities possessed credible proof that Chebukati was soliciting a bribe, or that anybody else was making an attempt to deprave the electoral course of, why was the matter not pursued by means of the investigative and anti-corruption establishments? And if the allegation was false, why was the proof not conclusively put to relaxation?
Kenya can’t have it each methods. You can not spend years telling residents that the electoral system was compromised after which refuse to account for what these in energy did when the alleged compromise was supposedly going down.
There’s one other contradiction that opposition politicians ought to look at fastidiously. Uhuru now speaks as if he was merely Raila’s political supporter watching occasions unfold from the sidelines. However he was the incumbent president.
That doesn’t imply he managed the IEBC. The Structure intentionally establishes the fee as an unbiased establishment. Nor does it set up that Uhuru might merely command the electoral fee to provide a selected consequence.
But it surely does imply that he occupied a unprecedented place of constitutional and political authority. If he possessed info displaying that the presidential consequence was being unlawfully manipulated, the plain query is what lawful steps had been taken by his administration to analyze it.
That query turns into even sharper as a result of the Azimio camp itself was not with out entry to senior political, administrative and safety figures.
So when Uhuru says right this moment, I do know Raila gained, Kenyans are entitled to ask: What do you know then? When do you know it? Who else knew it? What proof did you possess? And what did you do with that proof?
These questions are extra helpful than political nostalgia. Kenya has already lived by means of a presidential election being overturned by the Supreme Court docket.
In 2017, the Supreme Court docket annulled the preliminary presidential election and ordered a contemporary election. The courtroom’s determination turned on constitutional and authorized irregularities within the conduct of the election.
Former Commerce Cupboard Secretary Moses Kuria has claimed they conspired to disclaim the late ODM chief Raila Odinga the presidency in 2013 and 2017. PHOTO/UGC.
That historical past issues as a result of it establishes an vital precept: presidential elections will not be past judicial scrutiny. But it surely additionally establishes one other precept. Claims that an election was stolen have to be examined towards proof and thru the establishments established by legislation.
The 2017 determination is due to this fact not a licence to declare any election stolen after the actual fact. It’s a reminder that when critical proof exists, it have to be positioned earlier than the suitable constitutional establishments.
There’s an unavoidable historic irony right here. Uhuru and Ruto had been political companions within the 2013 and 2017 elections. Their alliance was solid whereas each confronted crimes towards humanity prices on the Worldwide Legal Court docket (ICC) at The Hague referring to the 2007–08 post-election violence; these circumstances had been finally terminated with out convictions.
They subsequently fell out spectacularly. Ruto grew to become Uhuru’s political nemesis, whereas Uhuru finally backed Raila in 2022. That historical past issues as a result of right this moment’s political narratives are being constructed from yesterday’s alliances.
Moses Kuria has now injected one other layer into that historical past. Kuria lately gave his personal evaluation of Kenya’s multi-party-era presidential elections, saying Raila gained in 2007 and 2013, whereas saying Ruto gained in 2022.
He additionally beforehand made controversial claims in regards to the strategies utilized by politicians to safe Uhuru’s electoral victories. These statements are Kuria’s allegations and political assessments, not established judicial findings.
Kenya has collected far too many political claims which are subsequently handled as historic truth just because any person vital stated them.
A former president saying one thing doesn’t make it true or false. A former Cupboard secretary saying one thing doesn’t make it true or false and a former IEBC chairman saying one thing doesn’t routinely make it true both. Proof does.
The opposition ought to due to this fact ask a unique query. The query just isn’t merely whether or not Uhuru is correct or Ruto is correct. The extra vital query is whether or not Kenya’s political class is as soon as once more asking residents to decide on which highly effective man’s model of historical past they need to imagine.
That may be a harmful street. Uhuru says Raila gained. The IEBC declared Ruto the winner. The Supreme Court docket upheld the consequence. Chebukati made allegations about makes an attempt to affect the fee. Tuju denied these allegations whereas acknowledging conferences with IEBC officers.
4 years later, Uhuru has revived the declare that Raila really gained. Each bit of that story requires proof, scrutiny and, the place crucial, accountability.
Raphael Tuju, then Government Director of the Azimio Secretariat. PHOTO/UGC.
Opposition leaders ought to watch out for political romance. That is the place opposition leaders should be extraordinarily cautious. They need to not confuse an enemy of their present enemy with a everlasting political ally.
Kenyan politics is affected by yesterday’s enemies changing into right this moment’s allies and right this moment’s allies changing into tomorrow’s enemies. Uhuru and Ruto are maybe the clearest instance.
They as soon as campaigned collectively. They ruled collectively. They defended their political alliance collectively. Then they grew to become bitter political opponents. Now the 2 sides commerce accusations over the very administration they as soon as collectively managed.
That historical past ought to educate the opposition one lesson: by no means outsource political judgement to a retired president, a sitting president, a former minister or some other political heavyweight.
If Uhuru says Raila gained, let him produce the proof. If Ruto says he gained legitimately, let the file and the establishments maintain that declare. If there was interference, determine who interfered, how they interfered and what proof proves it.
If there was an tried bribe, examine it. If there was no tried bribe, set up that too. And if there was an illegal alteration of outcomes, Kenya deserves to know who did it, when, how and why. Something much less is political dram!
And it must be famous that there’s hazard looming forward of the 2027 polls. The hazard just isn’t merely that Kenyans will argue endlessly about 2022. The hazard is that the 2022 election will develop into one other weapon within the 2027 political arsenal.
Kenya has already paid a heavy value for elections performed in an environment of suspicion, institutional mistrust and political manipulation. The nation doesn’t want one other election constructed round rumours, whispered offers, secret conferences and competing variations of what occurred behind closed doorways.
It wants verifiable information. So, Uhuru, for those who genuinely know that Raila gained the 2022 presidential election, the nation deserves greater than “mimi najua (I do know).”
Present Kenyans what you already know. Present them the proof. Clarify what occurred. Clarify what you probably did while you had been nonetheless president. Clarify what your authorities knew. Clarify what your officers knew.
And clarify why, if the election was stolen underneath your watch, the equipment of presidency didn’t cease it. That isn’t a partisan query. It’s the query any former president who reopens a disputed election owes the nation.
And opposition leaders ought to keep in mind one thing else: a politician’s current declaration doesn’t erase his previous place, his previous alliances or his obligations on the time occasions really occurred.
Kenya ought to demand the total file; not one other political pronouncement.
