Kenya has sneezed, and we may well catch a bad cold

As bold judicial moves go in our region, the Supreme Court of Kenya could not have pulled off a better one on Friday. Kenya is in uncharted waters that it must chart one way or other. (According to Reuters, the Nairobi stock exchange halted trading briefly midway through Friday’s session after blue chip shares plummeted following the Supreme Court’s decision.)
Nullifying the re-election of president Uhuru Kenyatta will be chewed on world without end by not just lawyers, politicians, political junkies, but by the rest of us “commoners” as well.
It is noteworthy that it was a 4-2 split decision. Chief Justice David Maraga could not get all his colleagues to agree; yet it is usually helpful in such momentous matters to deliver a unanimous decision.
No matter, another election will be held in 60 days. The implications are huge, because the process leading to, and including, election day must be impeccable. But what does that mean? “Elections is not an event but an process,” the chief justice said, according to Daily Nation. “After considering the totality of the entire evidence, we are satisfied that the elections were not conducted in accordance to the dictates of the constitution and the applicable principles.”
The court has set the bar for the electoral body — IEBC — way too high that it is probably bound to fail to scale it, let alone reach it. Which means another court petition by whoever loses in 60 days. And the pressure will be immense for the court to annul that election’s outcome. Kenya may end up in a cycle of petitions, leaving the country without a substantive and stable government for months.
The opposite may be true that the IEBC will meet the court’s stars-level standard and the loser will concede. For that to happen, I think, a first step would be the firing or the resignation of the current electoral commissioners. I can’t see president Kenyatta or challenger Raila Odinga accepting a losing result from the present commission.
A repeat of the Kenyan electoral process means bunkenke all over again for us in Uganda. The annulled process, or so we thought, had ended quietly. Our smooth use of the port of Mombasa had not been much disrupted. Now it is back to hoping that the new process will deliver an equally peaceful result. This is not to say we won’t take precautions as election date approaches, where our truckers simply stop crossing into Kenya as they monitor reactions to the presidential election result.
For the two key protagonists, a convincing win that can stand the scrutiny of court will be such a relief for president Kenyatta, a ringing endorsement of his August 8 win. A similar result for Mr Odinga would show how wise a man he was to go to court last month, however reluctantly. A defeat for Mr Kenyatta would mean the son of a former president could ride his privilege only so far — he had the prize but could not hold on to it. For Mr Odinga, a defeat would mean that hard-nosed ambition can only take you so far.
Regardless, as the Kenyans say, Kenya must win. And when Kenya wins, Uganda wins somewhat, even if our Supreme Court, with its obsession with the “substantiality test”, is not about to annul the re-election of President Yoweri Museveni.

Mr Tabaire is the co-founder and director of programmes at African Centre for Media Excellence in Kampala. [email protected]
Twitter:@btabaire