NAIROBI, Kenya Apr 7 – Former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga says “there is no evidence that the August polls will be peaceful, free and fair” unless authorities take serious action to restore the same.
Mutunga’s remarks come on the backdrop of a return of political violence in the country ahead of the hotly contested polls that are three months away.
Just last week, Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga was attacked and his chopper destroyed during a tour of Soy in Rift Valley, in what has sparked condemnations from across the political divide.
“Our elections are monetized and very ethnized and if we allow that to persist, we are going to violence and it has happened in the past,” Mutunga said during Capital FM’s John Sibi Okumu on Wednesday show that premiered this week.
This is a weekly, one-hour civic education radio programme that put “ideas over individuals” and, as a consequence, elucidation over confrontation.
Mutunga observed that “drums of war” are getting louder each passing day with no likely indications that there will be a peaceful election in the country, unless decisive action is taken.
“Our Constitution clearly has provisions that allows us to hold peaceful election but we fail do so and end up holding them on the basis of ethnicity,” he said.
He decried that the state which ought to ensure that the polls are conducted in a peaceful and transparent space has been captured by “divisive forces”.
“If we follow the Constitution and organize our politics, mobilize people on the basis of issues and not ethnicity and we create a nation out of the Constitution then there will be progress,” he said.
Mutunga predicted that there is a highly likelihood of there being another handshake – a political truce between the two main competitor’s in the August polls – as was witnessed in 2018 when President Uhuru Kenyatta and his political nemesis turned ally Raila Odinga shook hands and buried the political hatchet.
Kenyatta now supports Odinga as is prefered successor when his second and final term ends in August.
Mutunga who has been very critical of the government since his retirement however, observed that hope is not lost and expressed optimism that the citizenry will not allow to be dragged into the chaos as was witnessed in the 2007/2008 post-election violence.
“Kenyans and the voices of foreign interest will not allow violence to again happen,” he said.
Whereas the incident has been condemned by a cross-section of leaders in the country, there are still growing fears that the country might plunge into chaos if the intolerance is not tamed.
The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has since mapped out 27 regions which are potential hotspots for violence.
In the Kreigler and Waki report following the aftermath of the acrimonious 2007 election, a total of 1,133 people died as a consequence of the post-election violence.
The report further revealed that as a result of the post-election violence approximately 350,000 persons were displaced from their normal abodes of residence and or business. IDPs were concentrated in Western, Nyanza, Rift Valley, Central, Nairobi and Coast Province. About 1,916 Kenyans sought refuge in Uganda.
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