The August elections are fast approaching. Over the weekend, I keenly followed the NASA team campaigning in Bomet.Too early? Well, maybe yes.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, instead of fully focusing on their jobs, they have been thinking about the August elections.

 So you may not blame NASA for starting or wanting to start early. They may have been inspired by the president to start in time.

Well, the politicians are desperate to start campaigning now for our votes. We must be equally desperate to start scrutinizing them early enough. Yes, we should.

Our politicians should not be allowed to continue to thrive on the gullibility and vulnerability of the people to enrich themselves in the name of serving the nation.

 Genuine politicians do not enrich themselves in the name of fighting poverty. They rather enrich the poor to be out of poverty.

 So as we gradually get into the election, it is really important for countrymen and women to have a very, very critical approach to deciding which party and candidates they will support.

At the NASA rally, most speakers accused deputy President William Ruto of being corrupt.In fact, he was painted to be a man who can steal even oxygen from the atmosphere.

A number of politicians including William Kabogo, Hassan Joho, Harun Mwau, Mike ‘Sonko’Mbuvi and Simon Mbugua are on the radar of the US government as persons of interests with regards to drug trafficking.

A number of politicians are yet to clear their names regarding the NYS saga.We will have to go back to the 2013 election campaign manifestos.
We will have to examine the policy positions, arguments and debates the parties and candidates put forward. We need to critically look at whether or not the incumbents are delivering on what they promised.

If they aren’t we need to ask why, and why then should they deserve our vote again. We will ask questions ranging from the Primary school laptop project.

Why are our roads still impassable, why are we still fetching low prices for our produces, why has the youth unemployment doubled and why did Jubilee fail to build five world class stadiums it promised us in 2013.

The current government is not doing well. Over the last four years, conditions have not improved. In fact, on many fronts and in many sectors, conditions have worsened.

 The opposition has also not been serious. In fact, my judgment is that we have the weakest opposition. They fail to hold government accountable and say there is too much corruption in government.

They trivialize important issues with needless sound bites.At the Bomet rally, it turned out most speakers were either comedians or had personal grudges with a specific individual in the government.The rally fell short of convincing that it had serious people ready to take over the government.

 So at this stage, President Uhuru's government is not doing well, but the opposition hasn’t also proven to be a better alternative.

Like our learned lawyer friends will say “the accused is innocent until proven guilty.” For those of us who are not learned, but equally concerned about the future of our nation, we should say to the opposition: “Uhuru is competent until proven to have failed.”

 And the opposition has that burden of proof. A vote for any of the opposition parties must be based on clear and convincing evidence that, that party will be a better alternative.