Counting election dates is easy: don’t make it complex!
By MUNGAI KIHANYA
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
11 August 2024
The question of the
date of elections is important. Its predictability was one of the key
demands during the constitution review process that culminated in the
2010 Constitution of Kenya (CoK2010). The law states that “a general
election shall be held on the second Tuesday in August in every fifth
year”.
It does not say
after five years; it says in every fifth year. This was
intentional and carefully thought out. The idea was to make sure that we
do not go for more than five years before holding general elections.
The question that
baffles many is how to count the years. Do we use 365 days? If yes, what
do we do with leap years? Do we then count calendar years? And so on,
and so forth. However, the CoK2010 was very well written that it even
gives instructions on how to count days, weeks, months and years. This
is found in article 259(5).
It says:
“In
calculating time between two events for any purpose under this
Constitution, if the time is expressed as years, the period of time ends
at the beginning of the date of the relevant year that corresponds to
the date on which the period began.”
Now, imagine a baby
who was born on 9th August 2022: when would we ordinarily say that this
baby was in its first year? Is it not from the date of birth up to (and
including) 8th August 2023?
This is exactly what
article 259(5) is telling us to do. Therefore, the first year from the
last election runs from 9/8/2022 to 8/82023; the second one from
9/8/2023 to 8/8/2024; the third from 9/8/2024 to 8/8/2025; the fourth
from 9/8/2025 to 8/8/2026 and the fifth year runs from 9/8/2026 to
8/8/2027. So far, so easy.
Looking at the
calendar of the year 2027, we find that 8th August will be a Sunday. If
the election is held on Tuesday the 10th as widely expected,
it will be in the sixth year since the last one. Clearly, this will be
contrary to the constitution. We made the same mistake by holding the
last elections on 9/8/2022. That was also the 6th year from 8/8/2017.
Like I said two weeks
ago, it doesn’t seem to be a problem right now. The sky hasn’t come
falling on our heads because of breaching the constitutional provision
by just two days. However, I fear that one time in the future, this
breach could come to haunt us!
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