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Reports from the Kenya Human Rights Commission, the Elections Observation Group and independent journalists on the ground are unanimous in the Ol Kalou by-election: it is the most serious degradation of our democracy yet.
It is an assault on the sovereign will of the people, carried out in broad daylight and financed, by all credible accounts, with the resources of the very state that is constitutionally bound to protect the ballot.
At least eight Kenyans have been injured in clashes between rival camps. Masked men in vehicles with concealed number plates have opened fire on the public and assaulted residents along the Gilgil-Ol Kalou road. Voters have been offered sums ranging from two hundred to over five thousand shillings, alongside gas cylinders, mattresses and shoes, in exchange for their constitutional right to a free vote. Ol Kalou residents were reportedly ferried to State House days before the poll. ELOG has, in the plainest terms available to an observer body, declared the entire environment compromised.
We condemn the assault on the press by hooded gunmen, whose clear mission is to conceal evidence of electoral malpractice and gross violations of human rights.
This is not democracy. This is impunity wearing the mask of an election. Article 38 of the Constitution guarantees every Kenyan the right to make political choices free of intimidation. Article 81 demands elections that are free from violence, intimidation, improper influence and corruption. Article 249 places a solemn duty on our constitutional commissions to protect the sovereignty of the people. Every one of these provisions has been trampled upon in Ol Kalou, and the silence of those with the power to stop it has been deafening.
I have sat as Chief Justice of this Republic and adjudicated on what a free and fair election means. I will not now stand by and watch that standard be quietly buried in a single-constituency by-election, because a government that will steal one seat with impunity will not hesitate to steal in 47 counties, or the presidency itself, when the moment suits it. Ol Kalou is not a local contest. It is a rehearsal for 2027, and Kenyans must see it as such.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission must explain why its own warnings of nine days ago were not matched by action on the ground. The Director of Public Prosecutions and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission must move with speed against every individual, however highly placed, found to have bribed a voter, misused public resources, or unleashed armed men upon Kenyan citizens.
We demand once again the resignation of Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja for the continuing disgraceful conduct of the police. In Ol Kalou, we have witnessed scenes reminiscent of the Wild West with gun-totting police opening fire on peaceful members of the public to scare them away from exercising their voting rights.
We applaud the people of Ol Kalou, who have endured intimidation with more courage than the state has shown them protection, for standing firm. Their ordeal in the face of this dictatorship has set the standard for popular resistance to electoral manipulation.
Finally, I congratulate the DCP party and Sammy Douglas Kamau Ngotho on their decisive victory in the Ol Kalou in spite of the aforementioned circumstances. Hongera.
By David K. Maraga, Chief Justice Emeritus & UGM Co-Party Leader