Most Kenyans would have thought that bribery of whatever manner is illegal and punishable in law and that the only reason few people seem to have faced punishment has more to do with a system of justice that is more likely to perpetrate impunity than enforce justice.

But the reality is finally coming home. Some of those who witnessed the Tigania by-election recently characterised it as a vote auction and not an election. That the ruling party, they claimed, went to the ridiculous extent of moving beds from one dispensary to another then back to the original dispensary after the voting. These allegations are serious matters that should merit the fullest investigation and action.

But they are, for the moment, mere peripheral detail. What is at the centre is the danger to which the principles and practices of democracy have been put by electoral corruption. According to the democratic way, the ruled give consent to be ruled through an election. If they are thwarted in their expression of free choice, then the legitimacy of the government is obviously brought to question.

In other words, is an elective post that has been filled by means of electoral corruption validly filled? The answer is obviously negative. And this is a conclusion which should worry the government just as much as it should worry voters.

We insist that electoral law be applied without favour. We remind the government and all political parties that electoral victories fashioned through bogus defections and vote buying are a mockery of democracy and therefore totally unacceptable.

At the same time, we lend support to all efforts, including this latest one, to put an end to electoral corruption. It is regrettable that the Electoral Commission has in the past, in the face of what would appear serious breaches of electoral etiquette, taken refuge behind the legalistic excuse that it has no authority to stop vote buying outside polling stations. Any new law must expressly compel it to address such cases whether they occur within or outside polling areas.

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