Raila’s next move after losing election

His losing and then (probably) conceding defeat to Uhuru Kenyatta, whose presidential legitimacy Raila has never really come to terms with, would be an unimaginable one.

Having openly declared that he will not be seeking any other political seat in future in Kenya, it is clear that Raila is critically weighing his next move. A thick blanket of expectations hangs over his 6.7 million supporters.

Unlike in a painful private phone call by Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump to thank and give him a nod to lead US, that may not be easy for Raila to phone Uhuru with such a message. He, unfortunately, feels shortchanged after all in the elections in which over 19.5million people queued to cast their votes.

Raila’s lieutenants earlier read malice in the transmission of results which was described as sham, thanks to the “key figures he had from the IEBC database and insider”.

The 72-year-old politician has suffered another blow Monday morning as a spot check by P Live Kenya shows that hundreds ignored his call to “boycott work and mourn awaiting the Tuesday declaration.” People have gone to work!

Two failed options

Two key issues which kept Raila’s hope glowing, hit a snag. First, a self-declaration of victory Wednesday last week, which is patently illegal under Kenyan law, backfired. The announcement was being made when IEBC together with presidential poll agents were still tabulating Forms 34A and 34B, and hence the final validated tally was unlikely to have been transmitted to IEBC’s database.

Secondly, the would-be evidence in court, critics argue, for example, raw forms 34A and 34B are not in his possession. It is ridiculous to go to court barehanded. The judges may want to see the evidence for a case to start.

Raila’s team earlier claimed that the key IEBC system was hacked also received a well curated, yet satisfying response from the IEBC, dispelling fears that such a thing happened.

NASA had raised the red flag that the IEBC IT system had been hacked – the same system, ironically, it said it generated its own unverified numbers from.

Many people, in fact, now demand that Raila tells Kenyans where he got the figures, now that what he had differs with what his agents signed in the polling stations.

Go to court

Documents he has provided as evidence so far have been dismissed by the electoral commission, and it is unclear what Odinga will do next. He lost a court dispute in 2013 when he alleged an election was rigged, and this time Nasa has said court is not an option, a view his senior counsel and Siaya Senator elect James Orengo rallies to.

Dozens of observer groups and world renowned politicians have already urged the aggrieved Raila to go to court for a battle out.

The ongoing stalemate evidently has plunged some parts of Kenya into worrying levels of political intolerance Odinga lost a 2007 in which nearly 1,500 were killed and 600,000 displaced.