Our country Kenya is consciously walking into a dark pit. With a ticking time bomb, a dishonest political class and stubborn electoral commissioners everything seems out of control. Politicians dig in on stated positions, belligerent electoral commissioners stand their ground, discredited mediators struggle to reclaim their pride of place and ordinary Kenyans watch from the corners.
This is the look of a confused state. The fact of the matter is that time is not on our side. Even assuming there was good faith among our political class and the political will to solve this, we may not be able to substantively sort out the mess we have thrown ourselves into in good time ahead of the election. It is thus my call to the politicians to stop being dishonest.
The whole point of having a negotiated constitution was to enable us resolve all our issues without having to resort to the law of the jungle and flexing our political muscles. It should never be about who can marshal enough numbers or about who is right. It should be about what is right...an honest means to resolve the IEBC standoff. We need the leaders to have a strong dialogue. However, questions remain as to whether these allusions of dialogue will eventually be the glue that will hold the peace before a high stakes general election or become another forum for the political elite to further their power plays at the expense of the electorate.
The President should facilitate a mutually agreeable settlement of the IEBC dispute. He should support structured discussions with the opposition in person. The thing that the participants ought to know is that dialogue also means compromise; compromise on hard stances by the people involved in the talks. It should be more of giving than taking on their parts.
Hard positions cannot resolve the current standoff. It will only lead to more tension among the citizens and as it is well known, tension is never a good element for a general election. The key question would be whether the three sides to the debate are willing to give and whether what they want to give would be acceptable to the others.
As it is now, we can only wait and hope the leaders will put the citizens interests before theirs and that these promises of dialogue will yield into something tangible that will provide long-term solutions to the country's election process.
