| elections, fraud, Kenya, Mwai Kibaki
No matter how you look at it: Africa is a mess and the rest of the world should be ashamed of how we just ignore it. From the Darfur crisis, to the Blood Diamond trade and now even supposed African success stories like Kenya are unraveling. Kenya is one of those rare African countries where Westerners actually want to go, mainly for its wildlife. What will happen to the all-important tourist trade in Kenya once the world takes notice of this fraudulent Presidential Election and the violence that is ensuing? Sadly most of the world will not take notice, they never pay attention to what happens in Africa...
Watch the video and try to reconsider your stupid New Years Resolution of losing 10 pounds in the light of what happens every day on the Dark Continent.
3 comments:
But, Angry Jed, don't kid yourself. Kenyans don't look like most of us and if we do visit their country, we only go on safari, not to actually learn about the country and the people. I'll bet most people outside of Africa couldn't find anywhere near Kenya on a map.
All I've heard about the country in the press over the last few years is how it's "relatively stable." Anyone who reads east African blogs (the only place you can actually get news on the region, since the press won't cover it) knows that it's an overwhelmingly corrupt country with no hope of a free press (remember two years ago when newspaper offices were stormed and burned?).
It saddens me to no end that it takes tragic photos of beautiful people (e.g. gorgeous human beings dying in the famine in Ethiopia) or tourists in a bad situation for North Americans to notice. I wish this election would change that situation, but I have little hope that it will.
At any rate, I enjoyed reading your post. At least someone cares. thanks
I must say that I can't say in entirety who won the presidency and justice needs to be done. But I have some comments just to make sure our conclusions and perceptions (especially by the international press) are drawn from correct information:
1. Kibaki’s PNU was involved in election irregularities – It is true that there were irregularities in some PNU strongholds. But there were irregularities in some ODM strongholds of Nyanza and Rift Valley with some constituencies reporting voter turnout of over 90% (very suspicious) or 100% (outrageous) and Kibaki's party agents chased away during tallying. Unfortunately, this has been completely blacked out by the press as it happened at the beginning of the vote tallying process.
2. Raila beat Kibaki in 6 of 8 provinces and thus by inference won the elections – Let’s get mathematical for a moment. Question is by how much in the 6 provinces? What is the voter population in these 6 provinces vis a vis the remaining 2 provinces? If indeed Kibaki managed to garner between 18% and 45% in 5 of these 6 provinces, and Raila on the other hand had between 2% and 5% in the remaining 2 (which account for approx. 30% of the country’s registered voters), a Kibaki win is not entirely unfathomable. Non-Kenyans may not be aware but Kenya's law is about who wins in terms of absolute numbers as long as they fulfill the 25% requirement in at least 5 of 8 provinces.
3. ODM won 99 parliamentary seats and PNU won 43 seats and therefore Kibaki lost the elections – Two issues:
• Though conducted concurrently, the Parliamentary and Presidential are 2 separate and distinct elections. A party can win one and lose the other and vise versa.
• PNU was just the lead party among 15+ parties that supported Kibaki. These parties fielded competing candidates in certain areas which resulted in a split parliamentary vote sometimes giving ODM victory in the parliamentary election. Thus, in some instances, PNU lost the parliamentary seat but Kibaki won the Presidential vote due to a ‘consolidation effect’.
• PNU and it’s pre-election affiliates (i.e. excluding Kalonzo Musyoka’s party) have a total of 75 seats. Again, it is not unfathomable for a President to be from such a team.
4. Raila won by between 500,000 votes and 1 million votes (read ‘Landslide’) - The US Amabassador recently said that though not committing on who they think won the elections, their analysis indicates that whoever won did so by no more than 100,000 votes. Of course their report is not infallible. But it seems to be consistent with opinion polls conducted just before the elections that showed a difference of 1% between the 2 leading candidates (approx. 100,000 votes of the 10M who voters who turned out)
5. On the ethnic violence – In ODM’s final campaign rally in multi-ethnic Nairobi, Raila spoke in his native Luo language urging the crowd to give him Nairobi while Mudavadi did so in Luhya at the same venue. What would you have thought or felt if you were a Kikuyu who supports ODM and you were attending the rally? Though not necessarily a pointer to ethnic indifference, Kibaki to his credit never addressed a campaign rally in his native Kikuyu language even when in his home turf of Central Province where 99% of the population is Kikuyu.
I agree that Kibaki should not force people to accept his leadership. But neither should Raila.
Again, I say that I can't entirely tell who won the presidency and truth and justice in that regard is required. But even if he knows he will win, I am sure Kibaki will be unwilling to step down for fresh elections as long as Raila continues to take the moral high-round. Such an act will simply give Raila credibility that I am not sure he is altogether entitled to.
But my saddest day for Kenyans was on Tuesday during the first day of parliament. Members from both sides of the divide shook hands laughing heartily despite their vitriol-filled public statements. As we kill each other ‘fighting for our man’, our man is eating and drinking with the ‘enemy’ (with whom by they way share business interests) in his lavish mansion watching us clowns on TV.
God save us Kenyans from this foolish blindness!
Stephen
Nairobi, Kenya
Thank you both for such great commentary on this on-going crisis.
Steven, thank you for the insight and I welcome your future comments in my Kenya posts. I'm sure you could give the readers a level of knowledge that the press never will. - just stay safe.
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