African politics is extremely strange. Raila Odinga’s swearing-in is an example of it.
As a result of last Kenyan elections, on august 8th, Odinga, who was challenging Kenyatta junior for the fourth time, lost again. He denounced some frauds, which perhaps were true – nobody would swear to the contrary!
Kenyan Supreme Court unexpectedly accepted Odinga’s protests and scheduled new elections. On October 26th, Kenyan people voted during the so-called “fresh elections”.
But Odinga didn’t join the elections, supported by his coalition – made of 3 leaders with their parties and troops. He stated that he would not have been in, because it was all a “magna-magna”* and a fraud.
Kenyatta won and was sworn in and now he is Kenya’s president.
Odinga said that it was all fake and that he was the real Kenyan people’s president, with his coalition’s support. He added that he would have been publicly sworn in as the president of the “real” Kenya – as they do in the USA, in Kenya presidents swear on the Holy Bible and make a long speech about their aims and promises.
They have been three on-again, off-again months. “I will swear”, “I won’t”. So much that all people were thinking that there was a kind of economic deal.
In the end, two days ago Odinga “swore himself” in as a president, in front of thousands of Kenyan people.
It was a pity that the only people missing were his three allies…
All ended up with a fake.
*An Italian expression meaning that everybody tends to “take” (eat) all that s/he can to the detriment of the others. It is used especially when talking about politicians and corrupted people.
