Not 'til the fat lady sings.

What am I saying? Quite simply, that the pro-ICC civil society’s flagrantly incestuous orgy with local political formations has whittled away the Court’s affectations of impartiality and made it a pertinent political subject in the run-up to a fateful election.
- Eric Ng'eno, Sunday Nation, November 4, 2012

Our continued conflation of the fates of four Kenyans, especially that of three presidential candidates, at The Hague's International Criminal Court and the outcome of the 2012 general election continues unabated. The presidential contest, especially, will be determined by how Raila Odinga, William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta spin the ICC process in their favour. Mr Odinga may not have been indicted by the ICC, but his fate is tied to that of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto simply because it is his contest with Mwai Kibaki that led to the indictments of his erstwhile allies in the 2005 referendum.

Opinion pollsters reading the tea-leaves tell us that it is a tight race among the three. Kalonzo Musyoka and the other no-hoppers in the contest barely get mentioned these days. It Is the Raila/Uhuru/Ruto show all the way. Opinion polls, once analysed, paint a very different picture though. The three leading presidential candidates may obsess endlessly about the ICC, but Kenyans have more important worries on their minds. Youth unemployment is the leading cause for worry for a majority of Kenyans who have been approached by pollsters. Their continued unemployment, and the government's failure to ensure that the benefits of the 2008 to 2009 economic stimulus were sustained is a subject that all three leading candidates continue to ignore. Perhaps it is that they have no clue what to do. Maybe they are are deeply aware that they can do nothing, could do nothing when they had the chance or they prefer the situation as it is because it places at their command a ready group of "warriors" to do their bidding when the situation calls for it.

This is just one of the topics that has been ignored because of the fates of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto at the ICC. Even experienced tea-leaf readers are spending more and more of their time worrying about the ICC and how it'll affect the general election. But even that obsession is strangely lop-sided. We shall continue to ignore the ICC prosecutor's claim that she is focused on the victims of the 2007/2008 violence; she and her predecessor are only interested in scalps to justify the continued existence of the ICC. The popular narrative in Kenya is that had it not been for a wildly successful civil-society campaign against the original Ocampo Six, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto would not have to contend with a trial and that the man responsible for setting off the whole affair is the Prime Minister by his call to "mass action" for his millions of disaffected supporters. Mr Kenyatta's and Mr Ruto's legions of supporters argue that if Mr Odinga had not called for mass action, the two would not be facing international-crime charges at The Hague. The two may not have an army of NGOs claiming their innocence, but they are not alone in this. No less a personage than the President has attempted to stave the coming trial. The Vice-President would not have embarked an his futile shuttle-diplomacy had Mwai Kibaki not demanded it. Security officials would not have stalled in giving their evidence had the President not demanded it. Let's not forget the dozens of MPs who rise or fall with the two.

The Second Revolution is not yet over, its denouement is from determined. It is yet to swallow all its children like all revolutions do. Its initial victims included the likes of Kiraitu Murungi, Kivutha Kibwana and Martha Karua. It seems to be overwhelming the efforts of the Chief Justice and the Law Society. Remnants of the KANU hegemony seem to have infiltrated the ranks of the Second Liberation warriors and seem to be succeeding in sabotaging it. But it is taking on a life of its own. The youth - such a derided term for an unempowered mass - are learning at a geometric rate the lessons of 49 years of national impunity. How they apply these lessons will determine whether the popular contemporary narratives survive for posterity.