EDITORIAL: Vote freely — the country’s survival depends on you

On Tuesday, Kenyans are privileged to join societies where the individual can freely, without coercion or fear, choose who becomes the leader.

This freedom which, in our addiction to excessive contestation, we take for granted is not available to everyone. Even in our region, often electoral outcomes are predetermined or the will of the people subverted by use of force.

You are free to vote for whomever you like.

The mood in the country is that of apprehension, but also of hope that the election will be concluded peacefully so that the children can go back to school and their parents to their daily activities. The people desire peace and order. This is the basis of our confidence that the future of this nation is secure.

The Nation Media Group #ticker:NMG congratulates candidates, their staff and supporters for what has been an intense, hard-fought and long campaign.

Our expectation was that they would address the national priorities articulated in the Nation Ten-Point Agenda: celebrate the Kenyan spirit of resilience and patriotism, present policies to tackle State capture through corruption and drug cartels, the rise of tribalism, division and inequality of access to public resources, including public jobs.

It was also expected that they would answer public concerns about excessive borrowing, explain how they would support devolution, create jobs for our children, improve health and education, find a solution to Al-Shabaab and security in general and present credible proposals for land reform and food security.

The campaign was actually fought in the context of a drought and high food prices. It became a campaign issue, but not necessarily in the way Kenyans expected.

The candidates did not embrace this agenda in its entirety, but there are opportunities to revisit it in their future governance plans.

Elections have become traumatic events for Kenya. Leaders and Kenyans must choose a different course.

It is not acceptable that the economy comes to a virtual standstill and people in their thousands flee to the countryside every time there is an election.

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Anxiety in the country is not of the people’s making; it flows from leaders, the allegations — many times unsupported — that they make and the threats they issue.

Our political interactions are far from civil and the politician gentleman/lady appears an endangered species.

We must go back to loving and trusting each other.

Kenyan leaders must reject anxiety and fear and embrace reason and accommodation.

It will do well for President Uhuru Kenyatta and his rival, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, to realise and accept that one of them will lose the election.

There can’t be two winners in this kind of contest. To go into an election with the mentality that you can’t lose is a recipe for disaster. Both must prepare themselves, and their supporters, to deal with not just victory, but also the possibility of disappointment.

It is the duty of every leader to cultivate confidence in the institutions that Kenyans have spent so much time and money establishing and reforming.

During elections, a country’s survival is in the hands of its institutions — the police, the military, the Judiciary, the electoral authority and so on — and not an individual leader, however trusted.

If there are institutions that are not up to scratch, the country has an urgent duty to reform them.

The Nation Media Group’s platforms will report the final results as announced at the constituency tallying centres and the national tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya.

We will equally report complaints and petitions by those who will be unhappy with the results, but aware that results can only be invalidated by a decision of the courts.

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All Kenyans are encouraged to obey the law and resolve whatever electoral disputes that might arise within the mechanism provided for in the Constitution and other laws.

We wrote that Constitution so that it could guide the country in times of uncertainty such as this.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has a cardinal duty to deliver a free and fair election.

You will be jeopardising the stability and survival of the country if you allow or participate in the manipulation of the electoral process by whatever party.

Please don’t do it.

Finally, all Kenyans must go and vote. It is your job to elect the people to manage the country for the next five years. Please do it.