D. P. Ruto, please note: there will be no general election in 2022!
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
14 December 2014
Soon after the 2013
polls, the question of the date of the next general election came up.
Some claimed that it will be in 2018 since that’s when five years will
lapse. However, as I wrote in this column last year, the constitution
does not talk about “five years” regarding general elections. The phrase
used is “in every fifth year”.
The constitution was written that way because the aim was to ensure that
no term of parliament will last longer than five years. That is very
different from a five-year term.
When I voted “YES” in the referendum, I did so in the understanding that
elected leaders will not serve for more than five years before coming
back to me for new mandate.
If you count
carefully you will find that the fifth year will run from March 2017 to
March 2018. Thus “the second Tuesday in August” will be 8th August 2017.
Pushing the election to August 2018 would break the intended five-year
limit.
I have now heard many
political commentators saying that Deputy President William Ruto is
making maneuvers in preparation for the 2022 general election. I hope
Mr. Ruto’s strategists are not working with that date in mind because
they will be in for a rude shock: there will be no general election in
This fact was brought to my attention last year by a reader, J. P.
Kamau, who correctly worked out that after 2017, the next election will
be on
17th August 2021. He was worried that this will deny elected leaders
“their rightful five-year term”. But my view is that no such thing is
contemplated in the constitution. As I noted earlier, it is not what we
wanted.
Nevertheless, even this date may be challenged in court come 2021. The
reason is that there are two different ways of interpreting the phrase
“in every fifth year. Unless the constitution is changed, the next
general election will be on 8th August 2017. Counting from that date,
the fifth year will run from 9th August 2021 to 8 August 2022.
8th August 2021 will be a Sunday. Therefore, one can argue that the
first Tuesday inside the fifth year will be 10th August and so the
second one will be on the 17th. That is how reader J. P.
Kamau worked it out and I agree with it.
However, another argument may be that we must restrict ourselves to the
whole month of august 2021. In that case we find that the first Tuesday
of that month is the 3rd and so the second one is the 10th.
Therefore, we might have two competing days: either the
10th
or the 17th.
Whatever the outcome any such court case, the important thing for all
aspiring candidates to note is that there will be no general election in
2022. Don’t say you were not warned!
 |
 |