Over 100 people vote for a dead man

The United Kingdom went to the polls and saw a great election process come to an end with Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party maintaining their control of the 10 Downing Street and the House of Commons albeit with a narrow outright majority.

The elections brought with it a lot of intriguing surprises; a 20-year-old student, Mhairi Black was elected MP for Paisley & South Renfrewshire! Stunning, isn’t it? Come back to the Kenyan situation, where the youngest MP is Silvanus Osele of Kabondo Kasipul constituency – he was only 4 years older than Mhairi Black when he was elected. This shows we are not far apart with the UK in terms of what we look for in leadership. It also shows the immense trust the Kenyan public has in their youths and the belief the youths have in themselves with regards to leadership of this country just as Mhairi Black showed us.

You want to talk of political dynasties? Ask the constituents of Aberavon in England – they elected the husband of the Danish Prime Minister; Helle Thorning Schmidt! Yes, Mr. Stephen Kinnock won the elections in the UK while her wife is the prime minister of Denmark! Sounds surreal but yes its true. They are husband and wife and they are both political leaders in different countries. When we talk of the Mudavadis, the Odingas, the Kenyattas and the Mois for instance, we might think it is only in Kenya that most political dynasties occur. And by the way we have the Bushes and Clintons in the US as well. There you go, politics is a game and when a member of your family starts to play it, “it runs through your veins”. We are just as politically charged as the UK and the world in general.

More astounding news was that a man who died in April still got 113 votes in England elections. Did I hear that right? Yes, the very people we thought are way ahead of us in terms of information dissemination cast 113 votes for a dead man! Didn’t they know he was dead already? Wasn’t voter sensitization done about the contenders before the election date?  Loads of questions spring to my mind. This shows how close we are with the United Kingdom in terms of election sensitization and mobilization. Voter education is never done to satisfaction and thus voting for a dead man is possible in both cases.

We all complain about ethnicity and regionalism in Kenya; hold your horses and read this – the Scottish National Party (SNP) won 56 of the total 59 constituencies in Scotland! Take note of the name; its Scottish National Party. Just like ODM would sweep all the seats in Luo Nyanza, JAP in Central Kenya and Wiper in Ukambani regions, so did the Scottish National Party in Scotland. We all have an alliance we can always associate with at a given time. The Scottish leaders came together and formed an all-in-one party and it worked for them; so regionalism is real. Their victory has shown cracks in the “United” Kingdom and as things seem, they really have the momentum with them and could cause agitation in Westminster.

If you thought poor voter turnout is a Kenyan thing then think again, the overall voter turnout in the just concluded UK elections was 66.1%.  I think Kenya has done better than that in recent general elections. How approximately 32.9% (assuming 1% are either dead or very ill) of voters don’t turn up for elections in the United Kingdom is mysterious. Don’t they care about elections anymore or don’t they just feel the need to vote the leaders of their choice? When it comes to elections we are all the same.

It is never over until it is over. The Labour leader Ed Miliband his UKIP counterpart Nigel Farage and Lib Dems Nick Clegg all stepped down immediately after defeat. Now there is our big lesson. Our political leaders should learn to shoulder the blame on themselves and step down instead of blaming the electoral system and its officials. In accepting defeat, they will have stabilized the country through being peaceful and thus not plunging the country in to post poll turmoil. This will in turn lead to economic growth and thus jobs for the youths and the jobless hence a prosperous Kenya that we all want.