The ODM's Concept of Democracy

My understanding of true democracy tells me that people should be given a free will to elect their leaders and in the event that their choices lose, then they should concede defeat, congratulate and embrace the winner and respect the choice of their opponents. Losing graciously not only earns you respect, it gets you more admiration. Like I have said elsewhere, no one can really tell who won last year’s polls. That election was pretty much a split decision and it actually doesn’t make a lot of sense dwelling on it. This uncertainty has been compounded by the seeming incompetence of the Electoral Commission and the security forces. Now because this is about grace and civility, I will not rub it upon the disciples of the ODM that they lost, or at least that some evidence suggests they did so fair and square. That, I will pass for now. I will, however, point out that the chief embarrassment was how they reacted to the announcement of the results by the body that is solely constitutionally mandated to announce the results. The usual way of handling conflicts is through the discourse of the court. No one should buy the crap that the compromised nature of our court system stopped them from seeking justice there because this same party filed the highest number of parliamentary petitions by any one single party in the history of our multi-party electoral politics. Considering the ODM gave the handling of the parliamentary and local authority elections a clean bill of health, this high number of petitions not only points to a party acutely reluctant to concede defeat, it also shows an inexplicable level of double standards. No wonder they are doing absolutely nothing to bring sanity to the courts if they truly believe the courts dance to the whims of the executive. They are not only occupying a central position in government, they also control the legislature. Why the lull? Come the by-elections. When the PNU coalition lost the Wajir seat against all reasonable expectations, their candidate hugged and congratulated the winner. He promised to do everything he could to help the elected opponent in his bid to make the constituency better. PNU and its partners, of course performed dismally in Emuhaya and Ainamoi and they accepted the verdict of the voter. The ODM’s reaction to the losses in Embakasi and Kipkelion, on the other hand, was not surprising. Their Embakasi candidate declared herself the winner and then proceeded to court. Kipkelion was blamed on negative ethnicity as if this was not ODM’s prime principle—as if this is not what keeps the party going. Yesterday, we were treated to the same old defeatist antics once again. The same party marauders who stopped the tallying of votes in Kamukunji in December were at it again trying to intimidate everybody. The returning officer and the winning candidate were called all kinds of names. People threatened violence and were it not for the heavy police presence, there would have been serious bloodshed. Which brings me to the questions; when are this party and its omnipotent caudillo ever going to lose a fair contest? When are they ever going to acknowledge the rationale behind competitive politics? Are they ever going to learn to respect the fact that their opponents can also get the better of them? Are they willing to upgrade their understanding of democracy? My conclusion which is in actual fact a belief I have always held is that the ODM does not defend its members; it preys on their ignorance and vulnerability. It does not stand for democracy; it perverts democracy. It desires not to free its members from political bondage; it desires to imprison its members within its own fascist, unorthodox and utterly misplaced conception of democracy. But then again, even Machiavelli would have appreciated all this!