I have been struggling to find a suitable headline for this post since last Friday. that would explain why its coming almost 4 days late.
the things that were done by the so called political parties in the past 3 days to me have neither description nor a name. from Ugenya where 29 year old Steve Mwanga who won by a near landslide even though his name was mysteriously missing from the ballot paper and was later 'disqualified' to Kuria where Chacha Mwita was denied the certificate, got it then lost it again in a span of 24 hours the thing was unspeakable and am not disappointed, am angry.
Dan shikanda was robbed in broad daylight in makadara as was Amin walji in westlands, Barak Muluka in khwisero and so on. the 'nominations' were difficult to conduct first because it was being done by amateurs we understand but then why on earth did they set the final day as the day for it? that in itself was a sign of intent to rig. PNU used the services of the experienced and organized ECK but after the verdict was out, they shamelessly altered the results without a tinge of guilt and handed the losers the priced certs. and the council member one Mr. Nyamweya had the audacity to threaten Safina which had offered the aggrieved parties some sort of lifeline.
but anyway why am i foaming in the mouth? Mr Moi had one time said that KANU iko na wenyewe. which meant that democracy was as strange in that party as an igloo in kenya. the truth be told, we hardly have any political parties in kenya and the events of the weekend rightly point so. to start with, the voters should remember that they were not required to have a membership card. meaning that they did not have a say. anyone was welcome to walk in and vote as long as you were a kenyan above 18. so it means that we dont have a choice really. either put up, shut up or step! these parties have their owners.
but in Nyanza, true to their nature, the voters took kajwang's song literally and refused to sleep. they showed that '...mapambano bado yako' they refused to be used to rubber stamp those chaos in the name of nominations and insisted that the genuine winners must be re-instated. the party HQs have relented but may be as they say alea jecta est.
am sad for Mwanga. he was a beacon of hope in ugenya whose politics have been ruined by one man and his brother in law for miaka nenda miaka rudi. the man has done a lot for the people, with the people and through the people despite his youth. but my good old friend Kodhek once told me that you cannot stop a young person whose will is strong and is on his way to success. there must still be hope for Ugenya, Mwanga and others like him.
however every cloud has a silver lining and the events proved one Kalembe Ndile right that you dont need a degree to succeed in life (or maybe life in kenya) all you need is a party called TIP to rescue powerful losers and weak winners
Yes disaster is the right word, parties had all the time and resources to organise the nominations in a more decent manner but chose the last day to avoid defections, resulting into chaos and the defections they were avoiding because of the extended time by ECK.
ReplyDeleteThe most sad part is manipulation by party officials and denying the elected candidates certificates. We need explanations for this. I was very happy about Nyanza, most of our MPs have been making a lot of noise but working less, people have been watching and decided to teach them a lesson. If the right candidates are not given their certificates, people will not vote 3 piece on 27th December just to kick out the former MPs or the candidates being forced on them.
Well, there you have it, democracy the Kenyan way. I watched as one of the ECK commissioners said that the reason parties held the nominations so late was to stem defections-right. He went on to say (and here I agree completely) that if we had principled leaders, there would be no fear of defections after losing. Still, I think a "principled politician" is a misnomer!But in Kenya, they lower the bar even further. The game of politics is an arena of duplicity, outright lies, conniving etc. One would only hope that PNU and ODM headquarters would at least give the nominations some appearance of democracy, if only to instill some voter confidence.But hey, this is what you get when you have a whole political class that suckled at the venomous breast of Monster-KANU. From Kibaki to Raila(yeah, even a few months in KANU are deadly), they have no concept of the people's will.It is, to them, fanciful thinking that a villager can determine his representation.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Kenyans will still vote three-piece. The lesson of 2002 is not forgotten.
@sue, you are very right and i think that story of 3-piece should also cease. the presidential candidates should focus on their own election and let everyone carry his own cross. that way we will make sure we dont carry along hangers-on
ReplyDeletebut like you said, nyanza made me proud
@annon, i think this is where we need to give the media thumbs up. the media has really empowered citizens to take charge of their destiny. at this rate we may soon see tribalism which politicians have often used to divide and rule us , die a forced death!
ReplyDeleteif we want to fix parties we must allow independent candidates. which means parties will have to work hard to get candidates. but in our environment partes are extortion vehicles because they are required.
ReplyDeleteIts total shame. we expected Raila to show statesmanship. ODM is now same as PNU but the worst is how Nyaza reacted. I am from NE province.After the fallout of this failed Nominations I think ODM's support now fell from 90%(forget steadan poll) to bellow 50% mainly from how Nyanza reacted:Burning ODM flags etc. why would anyone elect someone whose homebase behave what their rivals call"stone throwers".Shame! Raila na Luos wameanguga mtihaani. Lets damage the control and look the big picture.
ReplyDeletewhere does Mwanga's money come from?
ReplyDelete(do kenyans care?)
i heard from livondo
that would explain some of the post nomination violence
@annon, maybe you are right. but again maybe that would be very chaotic. coz i see a situation where we have 210 parties represented in parliament. knowing kenya, it would be a market. i think we are on the right track. in fact i think the rigging that happened this time has always been there but the media never brought it out and the voters were muzzled. this time they spoke out. also remember this time the presidential candidates declined to influence the nominations.
ReplyDelete@2nd annon,i would be sad if NE part of kenya decide to blame Raila for the fiasco. openly he was not in charge of the nominations. there was a special board to oversee the nominations. in fact its rumored that he even switched off his fone to prevent losers from contacting him. raila and kibaki never even campaigned in their strongholds to avoid politicians making funny allegations about their preference.
ReplyDeletethe violence was regretable, but what i can tell u is that i have lived in kisumu and i know that the violent perpetrators are normally paid. they never do it for free.
@3rd annon, why are you asking about Mwanga's source of wealth. do you know the source of any other politician's wealth? we never do!
ReplyDeleteOn a general view, it's a maturity from the nyanza people, they have desired to have their own choices for parliamentary and civics positions regardless of party affiliation.it should be time that all concerned be aware that the choice is on the people and would be exercised. soon trbal chiefs will be past and citizens would want only accountable officers. My greatest joy is for the four women who won ODM nominations in Rift valley. A big Congrats
ReplyDeleteI have been wondering about this experiment called party democracy where the parties mean nothing and stand for nothing other than as ehicles to filfill certain politicians personal ambitions.
ReplyDeleteMaybe to strengthen the party we should look at having party lists drawn up and the people vote for a party and it gets allocated the number of seats in accordance with the strength of the party. The only lop side is how to integrate this with constituency based representation. Otherwise let us forget the charade called party democracy and just have a partyless democracy. Well these are just throughts on the fringes but maybe they may offer hope for Kenya
@Chris and Odegle
ReplyDeleteDo you see the irony in claiming to be denied the vote coz a candidate was not nominated?
it matter alot where mwanga's money came from if it came from pnu
The "people" can still vote for whomever they want...essentially nothing has changed, all the names are still on the ballot paper
why are these guys who wanted to hand on the coattails of odm and raila now making so much noice?
@Chris, its an exciting time. voters have become more enlightened and this way we will end up with very competent leaders
ReplyDelete@annon, we actually need the parties otherwise we will end up with the dictatorship that we know all too well. i think we are on the right track. as kenyans get better educated and enlightened, we will become better with age.
ReplyDelete@2nd annon, you can never tell where people get their money. and even if you were able, you may never be able to do anything of importance with the information. by the way, does anyone want to know where livondo got his money? or all these other aspirants? look at patni, we all can guess where he got all that money but can u see him all over the place campaigning without much trouble?
odegle
ReplyDeletegetting funded by pnu and running on a odm ticket is a clear no no
(that is why we have multi party)
getting funded by pnu and paying supporters to cause mayhem in odm is just sick
total mockery of decency.
which btw deserves another post on its own (disaster II).
do your research and let us know what you find out
if you were wrong about the "landslide" then pen an apology to the real "few or mamy democrats in odm
and condem those who actually deserve it
@ odegle. the US constitution does not mention parties anywhere and it has never been a dictatorship. I think the reason party nominations are cahotic is because there is no alternative to parties. I think forcing me to joing a party in order to run for office is a violation of my rights my freedom to associate with whomever i so wish.
ReplyDelete@annon, am doing my research to establish the source of mwangas great wealth and will do a post
ReplyDelete@annon, the US is a very mature nation with loads of experience. here we are still growing
ReplyDeleteLatest Emerging Details
ReplyDeleteA Disturbing new story has emerged from the Kibaki's birthplace in Nyeri,Kenya. Its a story never told before about the reason for the death of Kibaki's father. Mzee Karauri,speaking to a news reporter in Nairobi in November said that one day in the 1980's,Kibaki had hatched a plot to kill the then president Daniel Moi. A bomb had been placed in a chartered Kenya Airways plane that was to carry the president to a meeting in Ethiopia. Kibaki was responsible. Moi,who had an airtight intelligence network got hind of this plot. The former president was known to hit back hard when betrayed. He announced at the last minute that Kibaki represent him in Ethiopia. Kibaki was terrified. He badly needed a reason not to travel to Ethiopia,and it better be a good one. At about the same time,his father was ailing at a village in Nyeri. Kibaki is reported to have began a well executed plot that ended up with his father being killed. He then called Moi to inform him of his "loss".
Cosequently, Kibaki escaped by sacrificing his father. The bomb was defused, but from then on, Kibaki knew that he owed Moi his life and that he would do Moi's bidding. That's why Kibaki willingly split Kikuyu votes in 92 at Moi's bidding, this was supposed to be the payback for the attempt on Moi.
Steadman Cooking up Numbers.
ReplyDeleteA casual addition of President Kibaki’s support per province as released on Friday then divided by eight (the number of provinces) showed that Kibaki had scored 39.5 per cent, Raila had 47.6 while Kalonzo had 8.5 per cent.
http://eastandard.net/news/?id=1143977974&cid=159
Presidential voting by province
Province Kibaki Raila kalonzo
Nairobi 46.3 39.3 12.1
Central 92.8 5.0 2.0
Coast 34.7 51.5 9.7
Eastern 48.9 6.1 43.8
Nyanza 11.9 85.3 1.8
Rift Valley 39.3 55.8 3.9
Western 20.7 72.8 1.4
North Eastern32.2 64.4 3.4
Total 43.2 43.6 11.4
Kibaki average: 46.3+92.8+34.7+48.9+11.9+39.3+20.7+32.2=326.8/8 = 40.85
Raila averages: 39.3+5.0+51.5+6.1+85.3+55.8+72.8+64.4=380.0/8 =47.525
The weighting has already been taken care of by using a representative sample size based on registered voters per province. The larger the registered population in a province the larger the sample size!
That means that the results can be deduced by simple addition and division in two ways:
1. Because the sample sizes have been weighted you can add the total number of votes of each presidential candidate and divide by the total votes to get the percentage of the candidate!
2. Because the sampling has been weighted you can add the percentage provincial totals of each candidate and divide by the number of provinces.
@nsis, wow!
ReplyDelete@patriot, you have made your point. basically you have proven that a statistician can use numbers to mean anything he wants it to mean. thats why most studies on the cause of problems in Africa often contradict themselves depending on the funder