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{
    "id": 1519421,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1519421/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 176,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13165,
        "legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
        "slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
    },
    "content": "In fact, in my own analysis, we did better. This situation could have been handled better when we had the presence of EAC forces. Remember, at that particular time, not a single life of a soldier had been lost. They had managed to contain the hostilities. Look at what has happened since the coming into place of SADC forces. The M23 has advanced. They have gained more territory and some of their soldiers have been killed. Part of the resolutions of the meeting that happened in Addis Ababa on the night before the vote, including even allowing those soldiers to be transported back home. This is a very difficult situation. Hence, I do not think that it is proper for us, as a country, to speculate and find faults just to score cheap political points. Certainly, because you either do not like the former Prime Minister or the President and you choose to argue and push narratives that when taken through the test of logic cannot hold to be true. There are many reasons why people decide to vote this or the other way. The thing that the Senate is trying to do this morning is to record its appreciation. When 22 heads of State vote for you for six straight rounds, that is nearly half of Africa. Is that really not an accomplishment? Does it not speak true to the fact that those people believe that this is the right leader for this particular continent? We all know that elections are very complicated processes. There are many reasons why people may vote this or the other way. This was not our day, but the bigger conversation that had been pushed throughout the period for nearly one year that the former Prime Minister Raila Odinga moved from each of the African capitals, sharing his vision of a united and prosperous Africa, alongside the ideals and the founding principles of the AUC are things that need not be lost. It is my hope that His Excellency Mahmoud Yussouf, who was elected, will borrow on some of the good ideas. I listened to him the other night or two nights ago on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), where he said he will be reaching out. This is because there are certain things which, for sure, the former Prime Minister of Kenya pushed that he strongly agrees with. If, indeed, he had the formula of achieving those ideas, the brilliant ideas that he had, then, as a duly elected chairperson, he is duty-bound to reach out to people who have the age-old experience and the stature to push that particular initiative. I also want to challenge Kenyans that when one of us steps out to the global stage, we are duty-bound to perhaps pose our local differences and not transport them to the international stage. It is not just the former Prime Minister Raila who has been a victim of this. You know for a fact that many of the fake accounts that were being operated of his opponents were being run from Nairobi here by people who simply disagree with the candidature of Raila Odinga. We need to mature and rise to the position of knowing that our local differences need not necessarily be exported to the global stage and show it to everybody that we do not agree with this particular person or the other. I believe that in the same way, once an election is done, for example, in your county and people grant you the opportunity to serve as Senator for County X, all the other people queue behind you and you represent their interest here in the Senate. There is no need to undercut and undermine each other."
}