Why I will vote in August

On January 18th, I spoke about why I felt that it was so much harder for me to get to the polling booth this year. I still feel the same way – and I have even found many more reasons why I should stay in bed on August 7th, but I know I will wake up early and I will vote. Here’s why:

I will vote because I must remain hopeful. I cannot afford to succumb to the hopelessness that yields from a feeling of despondence – a feeling that it doesn’t matter. So I will vote even if my vote will be a protest vote.
I will vote because I believe that the MP candidate and the MCA candidate I choose will make a difference in my life.
I will vote because I dare not let others determine the future of this country without my lending my voice to it. I saw what happened in the US. Trump won because not enough of Hillary’s supporters came out.
I will vote because I believe I matter – and I honestly believe that my voice – even if it is alone, matters.

So I will vote come August 2017.

So having known that I will vote, then I must go through the process of thinking through how I will evaluate the many candidates that will be yelling at me the next couple months. Essentially, I must ask myself, what do I want in Kenya? What do I want my leader to assure me of? What is my agenda as a citizen?

In the same way it is easier to be hopeless than to have hope, it is also easier to know what you don’t want than to know what you want.

I have to be clear that I am undecided as at now who I am voting for in all but one of the posts. I know who I am voting for in the MP ballot. So I will sit down with a pen and paper, and I will make a list of the things that I want my next leader – MCA, MP, Women’s Rep, Governor, President – to specifically do, between 2017 and 2022. I will also sit down and list the three top things I will watch out for in the leaders I elect.

Thats my next blogpost.