In a piece published following the Tuesday inauguration of Raila Odinga as the People's President, the New York Times has named two things that seemed to add legitimacy to the event.
They noted that the switch-off of Citizen, NTV and KTN News as well as the outlawing of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) had given Raila's event some prominence, noting that observers had earlier dismissed it entirely.
"The television blackout and the criminal designation seemed to add legitimacy to Mr. Odinga’s oath, which some observers had earlier dismissed as political theater," they wrote.
The paper further revealed that envoys had advised the Government to ignore the ceremony completely as it would have no practical effect, but the state disregarded this.
"It has no legal or practical effect, so the best solution here would be to just ignore the entire thing. But they’re not doing that,” they quoted an unnamed Western diplomat.
[caption caption="NASA supporters at Uhuru Park on Tuesday"]
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The Three privately owned TV stations went off air on Tuesday morning as they delivered live coverage of the scenes at Uhuru Park.
It later emerged that 10 people in Land Cruisers had arrived at the Communication Authority's Limuru transmission base and disabled the signals.
When contacted by Kenyans.co.ke on Wednesday to establish when the stations would be back on air, a CA official declined to comment.
"If there'll be any statement it'll be issued by the relevant authorities, but at this time I have no comment," he stated.
Interior CS Fred Matiang'i on Tuesday afternoon further declared the National Resistance Movement (NRM), a wing of NASA, an outlawed criminal group.
[caption caption="Miguna Miguna as he commissioned Raila's Oath"]
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