Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi addresses journalists at the party offices in Lavington, Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Events surrounding the tense hours leading to the bitterly contested August 8, 2017 election, and the announcement of the results can be revealed today.
In a no-holds barred interview with the Sunday Nation, the National Super Alliance (Nasa) chief presidential campaigner and one of the four principals, Mr Musalia Mudavadi, recounted the shock and anxiety that gripped the opposition camp as results from the electoral commission portal trickled in.
He also revealed for the first time the reasoning behind his decision to declare Nasa presidential candidate Raila Odinga the winner before the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Wafula Chebukati made the official announcement, as expected, in favour of the incumbent, President Kenyatta.
Mr Mudavadi further sheds light on Nasa’s decision to challenge the results at the Supreme Court despite having consistently assured its supporters that it would not file a petition.
CHARGED MOMENT
The results announced by Mr Mudavadi gave Mr Odinga a total of 8.04 million votes against Mr Kenyatta’s 7.76 million votes.
“It was a highly charged moment and everybody was anxious. We were out to challenge what IEBC (The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission) was beaming on its portal. We wanted to put them on their defense since we were all studying the numbers and could see our victory being stolen. We had to act first,” he said.
Mr Mudavadi claimed the commission was applying an algorithm to tip the figures in Mr Kenyatta’s favour.
“We saw something was not right. The relevant forms had not been made available yet figures continued to be displayed and our independent tally was giving us a different scenario.”
If the goal, like he explained, was to make the IEBC change the figures, then the strategy failed flat.
“In the end, the Supreme Court vindicated us when they found that IEBC had not followed the law when conducting the elections,” the Amani National Congress (ANC) leader said.
BLOODY FACE-OFF
The declaration by Mr Mudavadi set the stage for a bloody face-off between Nasa supporters and the security forces, snowballing into a season of political madness that only cooled off with the Uhuru-Raila handshake. With the truce came the crumbling of the Nasa house as the other principals felt betrayed.
The official figures by the electoral boss, Mr Wafula Chebukati, however, gave Mr Kenyatta a comfortable win of 8.2 million against Mr Odinga’s 6.8 million votes.
Mr Mudavadi admits that his declaration that the source of their figures was IEBC was a political ploy to scare Jubilee from playing any monkey business.
“Of course we were jolting them politically. Sadly, it later turned out that they had indeed interfered with the results as revealed in chairman Chebukati’s memo to the suspended CEO Ezra Chiloba.”
Mr Mudavadi further revealed that while they knew all along that they would move to the Supreme Court if their victory was “stolen,” they as a matter of tact, sustained public pronouncements to the contrary, if only to mislead their opponents.
DESTROY EVIDENCE
“That was a decoy. We did not want to give them ample time to destroy evidence. Our teams of lawyers had been assembling evidence from the word go. They did a good job,” he said.
The Supreme Court petition saw the voiding of Mr Kenyatta’s win, a first one in the country’s history.
Mr Mudavadi also shed light on the circumstances that forced Mr Odinga to skip the October 26 repeat election that President Kenyatta won with a landslide.
He revealed that when they realised that IEBC had already fumbled on whether to call for fresh nominations or not, coupled with a failed attempt to get an interpretation from the Supreme Court, which collapsed due to quorum hitch, they resolved that it was unwise to take part in the elections.
“The commission had also been dogged by the resignation of commissioner Roselyn Akombe. So after a lot of soul searching, we arrived at the decision that it would be futile to participate in the second election under the same commission that had defied the Supreme Court order to open its servers,” he said.
CHALLENGES
He also delved into some of the challenges that dogged Mr Odinga’s campaign. Overall, the organisation of the presidential campaign went on well, he explained, notwithstanding “few issues” with agents, some who defected to Jubilee at the eleventh hour.
“Your opponents can buy your agents especially when they have State resources at their disposal. These are the dirty tricks around politics.”
Mr Mudavadi also delved into Mr Odinga’s controversial swearing in ceremony at the end of January, which him and fellow principals Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang’ula skipped and what informed their action.
He spoke of a meeting between the Nasa leadership and a delegation from foreign missions based in Nairobi to dissuade them from taking the oath.
“The Americans put it this way: As Nasa you have legitimate concerns on need to attain electoral justice, the need to have victims of violence compensated, the need to reform electoral body and the need to have more inclusive government,” he explained.
“But if a parallel oathing ceremony is conducted, Washington will no longer be helpful. Your status will change from responsible political leaders to warlords.”
HARD STANCE
It is not clear at what point the West climbed down on their threat even with reports indicating that some top Nasa officials had their visas temporarily revoked as part of the measure to have them drop their hard stance.
As the envoys were talking the opposition from the mock ceremony, a technical team had launched a similar push to have the Nasa summit abandon the idea.
And when the matter was finally brought to the principals at Maanzoni Lodge, it ended in a stalemate with Mr Odinga finding himself as the only voice in favour.
Mr Mudavadi for the first time explained some of the merits of not taking part in the ceremony in what brings into focus conflicting accounts in the past by some of his party officials and Mr Wetang’ula, who insists that Mr Odinga tricked them on the material day to show up at Uhuru Park to be sworn in as the People’s President.
“The long and short of it is that this was a constitutional matter. Those who were for it had their own reasoning but some of us were not for it. We had debated this even in Maanzoni Lodge and argued that here, were credentials of a former Prime Minister (Odinga), credentials of a former Deputy Prime Minister (Mudavadi), credentials of two former vice presidents (Musyoka and Mudavadi) and two former ministers of Foreign Affairs (Musyoka and Wetang’ula) on the line.”
RESPECTING CONSTITUTION
“What was the move going to do to these credentials? And the other question we asked ourselves was once you take the oath what happens next? What was it going to do to our credentials as democrats? What about those of us who value the rule of law?”
He argued that leadership comes with a sense of responsibility, which among others is respecting the constitution.
“We strongly felt much as it looked like a populist process, it had no legal value. For me, the only means to power is through a constitutional process. If you go that route, which country will receive you? Which nation will recognise you? These are some of the issues that were discussed but there was no unanimity,” he said, adding, “For some of us, we decided then that swearing in was not the right way to go.”
He said that by this time, they were running out of options with their credibility and basis in challenging results where Mr Kenyatta had been declared the victor with more than 98 per cent of votes cast on October 26.
MEET IN KAREN
“Raila told us not to come, that he would be arrested and needed people to fight for him. He called using a Nigerian line and told us to meet at a safe house in Karen where we had always met,” Mr Wetang’ula has previously stated.
Mr Odinga has, however, denied the assertion, recently retorting; “Those who wanted to come came.”
Despite the growing bickering in the coalition, Mr Mudavadi maintains that Nasa was and remains a good idea.
“I’m convinced we won the election courtesy of it. It is only that the IEBC subverted the will of the people. Nasa supporters are not sitting well and they would be so relieved if we can surmount the challenges we are facing at the moment.”
DRAWING DAGGER
And on Mr Wetang’ula’s reference to the outfit as moribund, the ANC boss is of the opinion that any attempts to wind it up would not only be akin to drawing a dagger into a wound but also twisting it to generate more pain. “It will be a breach of trust Kenyans bestowed on us.”
The politician also delved into some of the areas he thinks if they handled better, they could have gotten better results in parliamentary and gubernatorial elections.
“Maybe we should have devised a way of conducting joint nominations. There are cases internal rivalry among constituent parties affected localised votes. In such cases, we ended up competing among ourselves in the end handing opponents victory.”
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