Opinion: Why IEBC is an unnecessary burden to taxpayers

Ladies and Gentlemen, this week I cry for my beloved motherland Kenya.

I ask again, who has bewitched us? Why do we keep spending colossal sums of money on things that we quite frankly do not need?

A few months ago, someone mentioned to me that the August 8, 2017 General Election would cost us about Sh30billion.

In fact, IEBC had initially put the figure at Sh40 billion as it sought to register an additional eight to nine million voters.

NUMBERS GAME

Thankfully, a number of those voters did not want to subject the country to an unnecessary financial burden and chose to stay away from this ritual that comes around every five years anyway.

And I totally understand where these great Kenyans were coming from. These men and women saw into the future.

A future where IEBC would no longer be needed and no one would need to go to the ballot for the final tally to be known.

That future is now here with us. Our democracy is at its peak and our neighbours in Tanzania and Uganda must be green with envy.

And we have our great political parties to thank for the new frontier of political advancement.

Each of the party leaders now walks around with a tallying centre as they move around the country declaring the exact figures that we will see on August 8.

The National Super Alliance was the first one off the blocks. With just under zero percent of the votes counted, the opposition coalition has a final tally of 10 million votes with the rest of the parties scrambling for the remaining 9 million.

MADHOUSE

This result has been declared in most of the constituencies in line with the High Court ruling that the final tally must be announced at the constituency.

But the new electoral system developed by the political parties is now so advanced that it can accept results from any source.

As a matter of fact, it allows every Kenyan who feels like declaring any result to go ahead and do it. It also permits multiple figures even for the same elective post to be made public, whether at public rallies or on television.

That is why, even before we figured out whether there were any spoilt votes in NASA's tally or if there had been ballot stuffing or indeed any other grounds for a Supreme Court challenge, the Jubilee brigade has gone one better.

The President's party on its part has developed a computer programme that multiplies their opponents' votes by four and a half. Now they can proudly take NASA's tally head-on, because their count surpasses even the number of registered votes.

In fact the Jubilee system converts every available Kenyan into a registered voter. That is why their final tally, again with just under zero percent of the votes counted, is 45-million strong.

In fact, Devolution Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri has taken it further. Using special powers usually granted to the devolution docket, he has even worked out the percentages by county. He now knows exactly how many votes Jubilee has got in Samburu, in Marsabit and even in Kilifi.

This is what political progress looks like. Not to be left behind are the pollsters. Tom Wolf also has some figures; 47 to 42 per cent for Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga in that order.

At least his results have only been announced at his offices in Nairobi and so might still need to be verified at the constituency. But he says there is still some 8 per cent of Kenyans yet to decide what or who they will vote for.

SPOILT FOR CHOICE

And I think I know exactly where the problem is. How would these 8 per cent be expected to make a decision in the face of very complicated choices presented to them by political parties?

Jubilee and NASA for instance, are forcing us to choose whether we want free secondary education in September or in January. I am personally very confused about this issue.

First, NASA has not explained in any detail why they do not like the month of January. What has January done to deserve this kind snub?

Is this not the month in which the leader of NASA, Joshua arap Mibei was born some few years ago?

Why should they now disown January and choose a random month like September? The January start date pledged by Jubilee is even more battling.

I would have expected Uhuru Kenyatta to easily settle for September for his free secondary education promise. This is a good month. It comes just before the president's birthday in October.

SYMBOLISM

In fact, his own party, Jubilee was launched in the month of September. Why pretend that he has nothing to do with September. We are simple voters we don't need these complicated choices.

The task we have in the next 61 days is already daunting enough; the task of reconciling NASA's pre-existing 10 million votes with Jubilee's record 45 million votes.

I am not too sure the IEBC will help us with that.