Kenya polls holding, vote counting transparency laudable

to air their impressions of what was taking place. 

The flow of results was such as to indicate unassailable lead of incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, and the political nadir of leading opposition figure Raila Odinga.

It was a repeat of earlier roles, where the two had their parents in similar roles nearly 40 years ago, thus from a viewpoint of political fate or dynastic roles, nothing is surprising as to these results.

What though is incontestable at this point is that the situation across the border, while it is undeniably still fluid, is likely to live to expectations of stability and concord, largely due to structural factors like the fact of having a new constitution. 

This has permitted a more even spreading out of benefits in elections, where the old focus on the presidency alone, as the legislature is representative in character and can’t create or remove jobs of thousands of individuals or possibility of being contracted for public works is no longer the case. 

As the lead the current holder of office had put up looked high, chances of its overall acceptance were high.

There is another rather unstated point from onlookers and opinion makers, that the parties most responsible for the post-election violence early 2008 are precisely those who later forged an alliance of conservative forces to keep out left-leaning political groups, led by Odinga. 

In that sense those who lined up against the holders of office are in the first place of a more peaceful tendency than their opponents, and since the group in power was having a fairly comfortable lead it was unlikely visible actions of forcing a positive result would be unnecessary. There are claims however that the polls have been interfered with, but observers weren’t inclined to that view yet.

Those in other parts of East Africa who like most of us wished for peaceful polls and outcome in the Kenyan polls, might be in a position to see that the best guarantee for peace and concord is continuity for those holding office. 

When the wish for change overcomes that of stability, in many African countries there is a minimal disruption of the peace before the dust settles, or in Kenya in 2008 it was the prospect of ending the third phase presidency at its first term of office by a thin margin. 

Similar experiences have been felt for Zanzibar in that situations where a state is not ready for change, and by a razor-thin margin of votes, undergo a ‘Caesarian correction.’

Let it be agreed that the most important outcome in the Kenya polls is not who won but rather the peace and harmony is very much likely to remain in place, as tensions weren’t rising in the course of the voting and counting. 

This is what each of us wish for our neighbors, but at the same time those of us designing laws and regulations on the conduct of political work ahead of the next general elections ought to realize that peaceful conduct and freedom isn’t consonant with a massive danger of change. 

People evaluate the work of a government and when they feel it has done well they vote for it. Stability is consonant with democracy; we need is to assured it works.