NEWS GANG: The good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2022 General Election

YVONNE: What a week! What a season. We took a break, not quite literally here, to participate in the just concluded General Election and, of course, as voters. And what an election it has been.

GACHURI: The register read 22.12 million voters but a low turn out sent only 14.2 million of us to the polling stations. But that notwithstanding, the Kenyan voter made himself and herself heard in typical Kenyan voter fashion: orderly, peacefully and freely.

JAMILA: But the Kenyan fashion does not end there. Things have followed the beaten path; peaceful and orderly voting was followed by long, anxious days of vote counting and then almost naturally the disputed result. Tonight, we have a President-elect, but we also have a potential Supreme Court showdown in waiting.

LINUS: Indeed, those are the marks and stripes of our bumpy democratic story. Hits and misses, rain and shine, laughter and tears all form part of our ongoing democratic journey. At this point tonight, we are exactly where we always are at this hour every election year.

YVONNE: A cliff hanger of an election ended in a virtual draw between President-elect William Ruto and veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga; the two presidential contenders separated by an historic narrow margin of just over 200 thousand votes. The battle at the ballot ended 50 to 48 in Ruto's favor, but a Mathematical puzzle has been triggered by a divided IEBC. And the verdict may well be made by the 7 Supreme Court judges.

GACHURI: Well, we leave that to the Supreme Court and its seven wise men and women. But we want to first celebrate what really worked and we hope, what will form part of our electoral culture in future. There was something good about that photograph of Nairobi Governor-elect Johnson Sakaja having a cup of tea with his main opponent Polycarp Igathe.

JAMILA: The Sakaja-Igathe image communicated civility and political maturity. You see, it's an image we can’t take for granted in a country where political careers are built around acrimony and the capacity to be nasty, uncivil and all together uncouth. We commend Sakaja and Igathe for the symbolic tea.

LINUS: And then there is the heartwarming story in Kinango ward, Kwale County, where the race for MCA was decided by, listen to this; one vote, just one vote. Then the surprising bit of this is that the loser conceded the race to the winner. It was a third time lucky for Richard Itambo who lost his first race by 300, his second race by 57 votes and won this one by just one vote. The maturity of the two candidates must be lauded for the good example it sets not just for Kinango but also for a country that is increasingly having to get accustomed to closely contested elections.

YVONNE: Talking of heartwarming stories, did you hear someone successfully running for office on the back of a donkey quite literally? George Nene is now the elected MCA for Elementaita ward in Nakuru County. He lives in a mud hut and despite the poor background, defeated a long serving MCA. We salute Nene for running a campaign of humility in a country that has increasingly made elections a show in opulence and largesse.

GACHURI: We also pay tribute to the success stories about women and leadership. This election has produced an unprecedented number of elected women governors; 7 in total. Nakuru County decorated the women leadership ascendancy story with an all women line-up of Governor, Senator and of course Woman Representative.

JAMILA: The National Assembly looks forward to the contribution of Linet Toto, the youngest female MP representing Bomet County among others. But we must offer a polite thumbs down to counties that offered between little and nothing to women aspirants. Nyandarua County and Kirinyaga County elected one female MCA each, the statistics are worse in some other counties.

LINUS: As we celebrate the good, we must also confront the ugly. The death of Embakasi East Returning Officer Daniel Musyoka goes down as the darkest blot on this year's election. Musyoka's murder bears similarity with the brutal killing of IEBC ICT manager Chris Msando in 2017. Both Musyoka and Msando ended up cold dead their bodies dumped in the forest presumably for reasons related to their work.

YVONNE: Musyoka is dead but Mohamed Kanyare, an election official in Eldas, Wajir County, is in hospital with an amputated leg. Kanyare was shot in the leg while performing his duties in a tallying centre. He too joins the statistics of the election ugly in Kenya.

FRANCIS: We speak of physical harm but we can't forget the ethical and moral damage displayed at the national tallying centre of the IEBC where another episode of ugly divisions among the commissioners was on display. The 7-member commission split itself into two factions. One revolving around Chairman Wafula Chebukati and the other around Vice Chair Juliana Cherera.

JAMILA: Broadcast media, including ourselves here at Citizen TV, had to split the screen to accommodate the two faces of the IEBC. In what was potentially a dangerous show for the country, the IEBC delivered conflicting verdicts on a presidential election result that was already too close to call. The split screen could have triggered the unknown if not for the evident, praise worthy maturity of the Kenyan population.

LINUS: Indeed, don't we owe it to the maturity of ordinary Kenyans that so far things are going rather well? To the Kenyan mwananchi, well done fellow citizen, you have proved maturity and patience in the face of shortfalls from those who should know better. IEBC is in the process of failing again especially in the simple test of leadership and responsibility.

YVONNE: Indeed, the days ahead will survive because of the maturity of the Kenyan voter. Consistently and beyond doubt the ordinary voter has acquitted himself or herself with a disclaimer we endorse; if anything goes wrong the mwananchi is not to blame.