Contrary to popular belief, there will be no elections in 2022!
By MUNGAI KIHANYA
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
19 June 2016
Humans are an interesting lot. When they are below 20 years of age, they
want to appear older than they actually are. Ask a 10-year-old his age
and he will say something like “I will be turning 11 in December”. Now
that’s a whole six months away! However, after crossing the 20-year-old
barrier, people want to seem younger than they are; the after 50, they
want to appear older!
Still, an important question remains: suppose a person was born on 1st
January 2000; what was the first year of their life? Obviously, it was
the year 2000. That is why his first birthday is celebrated on 1st
January 2001.
A closer look reveals that this baby’s first year ended on 31st
December 2000; that is, this was the last day of the first year of his
life. In other words, all the days from 1st January to 31st
December 2000 were in the first year of his life.
With that clearly understood, here is another question: which year of
his life is he in today – 19th June 2016? Now you might be
quick to say the 16th, but you would be wrong! Yes he is 16
years old, but he is in the 17th year of life.
Let’s do the
calculation: the year 2000 was his first, 2001 his second, 2002 the
third and so on. So, his year of life is always the calendar year plus
one. Therefore, since we are in 2016, he must be in his (16 + 1)th year,
that is, the 17th.
This logic is easy to follow because I have chosen a convenient starting
date – 1st January 2000 – but it remains the same even when
we start somewhere in the middle of the year.
For example: on 29th September 2006, I took out a ten-year
life insurance policy. In what year is it today? By the above arguments,
it is in the 10th year, but it will complete 10 years on 28th
September 2016 – that will be the last day of the policy. So, on 29th
September, I will expect the insurer to pay me all the benefits of the
policy.
The good thing about the insurance is that, from 29th
September 2006, I have been making a single payment every year. My first
instalment was in 2006, the second in 2007, the third in 2008 and so on.
Therefore, it is easy to simply count the number of payments made to
know which year it is in.
We notice that the year is equal to the instalment number plus five: 1 +
5 = 6 (2006); 2 + 5 = 7 (2007); 3 + 5 = 8 (2008) and so on. Therefore,
my tenth instalment was in: 10 + 5 = 15 (2015, on 29th
September).
Now that seems like a very complicated way to do a simple thing;
however, if we apply this logic to our parliamentary cycle as described
in the constitution, we find that, after 8th August 2017, the
next general election will be on 10th August 2021.
In other words, contrary to popular belief, there will be no general
election in 2022!
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