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To my friends and peers losing in these elections, never forget that “wepesi wa leo ndio vigogo wa kesho”.
One of the fatal electoral failures on our side of politics happened in 2004. LDP had fronted little known ‘ali hassan joho’ in a by-election following the death of then powerful minister Karisa Maitha, a staunch Kibaki backer in those tumultuous days of the faltering Narc regime.
No, the race wasn’t even about joho. The race was framed as a Kibaki-Raila contest and a Narc/NAK-LDP duel.
Narc/NAK fronted Anania Mwaboza. LDP had a political novice in the name of ali hassan joho (notice the small ‘a’, ‘h’ and ‘j’).
joho lost big. LDP lost and Raila Odinga lost. joho challenged the results in court and the ‘Joho doctrine’ became a feature in electoral litigation in that while the judges agreed that the election was flawed, they also claimed that the flaws could not have substantially tilted the vote. They refused to nullify the results. So Mwaboza reigned.
First forward to now and Ali Hassan Joho (it is now a political offense to spell His Excellency’s name with small letters!) is the Governor of Mombasa while Ananiah Mwaboza is a runningmate to Suleiman Shabhal in a little known Jubilee Party of Mt. Kenya.
Joho is also now SULTAN.
“Wepesi wa leo ndio vigogo wa kesho”.
