Two Kenyan prominent figures living in the US have expressed varied reactions to the bungled August 8 polls.
Kenya’s Ambassador to the US based in Washington Robinson Njeru Githae and New York based legal Scholar Prof Makau Mutua during a conference in Atlanta, Georgia gave different stand points on the matter.
“I can categorically say here looking you straight in the eye that the Supreme Court robbed Uhuru Kenyatta of his win and stole the election from the Kenyan people,”stated Ambassador Githae according to Daily Nation.
He said the Supreme Court had no basis to nullify the elections as it was clear President Uhuru Kenyatta had opened a huge lead over RailaOdinga.
“They had no basis for coming to that conclusion,” he said adding “not a single election agent has even sworn an affidavit saying the results at a polling station were different from what was announced by the IEBC.”
But Prof Makau, an all-time critic of President Uhuruquickly responded thatRaila was denied victory.
“It was not just the presidential election that was invalid. It was the entire election. The whole thing was rotten.”
The law scholar said that he is glad he did not get the Chief Justice job that he had applied for last year because, “because if I had ruled against Mr. Kenyatta I would have been lynched in the public square.”
Ambassador Githae and Prof Makau spoke on Saturday during the 10th annual Kenya Scholars and Studies Association (Kessa).
Mutua also said Kenya’s Supreme Court made history by nullifying the elections; it was the first in Africa.
“What is shocking to me and puts paid to the claim the ambassador is making that Jubilee won the election … is the fact that a court of essentially conservative, establishment jurists have overturned an election in Africa for the first time.”
“They have made us proud, extremely proud. They have established a position that is going to reverberate throughout Africa,” added Prof Mutua.
But the Ambassador differed with Makau opining that in Africa, “people don’t accept to lose.”
“If you lose an election, ‘it’s been rigged, the election has been stolen.”
By Pharis Kinyua. He’s an online Journalist and an author for Jamhuri News