Rigging
written by James Macharia , March 17, 2008

Interesting stuff. Nothing too new though apart from mentioning Mr. Kibor. Railas buddy, whom he took time to visit in Nakuru, away from his busy schedule. I like the certainty with which they say that the polls were rigged.

I expected to see hard facts, of people being caught inn the act of changing figures, only to be disappointed by the same tired arguments, of people who don't seem to have followed the elections too closely and don't seem to understand the dynamics of the Kenyan electorate or the make up of our political parties landscape.

Any assertion that starts with the premise of ODM having won 99 seats to PNUs 43, only serves to downgrade the research capabilities of the people who compiled the report and serves to throw the rest of the report, and broad assertion in questionable light.

It's been explained that the PNU coalition is one that consisted of a myriad of parties which also contested the elections, almost always in competition to PNU. It should also be noted that PNU itself only fielded candidates in 135 constituencies, leaving the other constituencies to its other major coalition partner KANU.

As such any argument that goes in this direction should at least include the 14 KANU legislators to his number. A more relevant assessment of pro Kibaki forces would be the one conducted during the Speakers election, excluding the ODM-K MPs. That election went 105 - 101 with 1 spoilt vote. That would bring pro Kibaki MPs in the house to 85 or 86. Apart from Jebii Kilimos constituency, all the votes that went to these MPs also went in favour of Mwai wa Kibaki.

Second it should be noted that the following seats would have gone to PNU and allied parties were it not for fielding of multiple candidates. Starehe, Kasarani, Embakasi, Lagdera, Moyale, Turkana South, Rongai, South Mugirango and West Mugirango. Those are all constituencies, that Kibaki won, but in which the MP is from ODM. In fact in total, Kibaki won 108 constituencies to Railas 101, although among the 108 are the 16 won by Mr. Musyoka.

However owing to the strangely unequal representation in different constituencies, it is quite possible for Kibaki to win the election even if he won 92 constituencies (and the 16 Kalonzo ones where he didn't score as high) to Railas 101. The Central province is the 2nd worst represented province in the whole country only next to Nairobi.

While Nairobis unequal representation comes from its tiny geographical size and the resulting extremely high population density (as does North Easterns over representation come from its extremely low population density), there's no justification for central being worse represented than Nyanza. The two provinces are not that far apart in geographical expanse or the number of registered voters. Were the two provinces, to have similar level of representation, central would gain 5 more seats in parliament. The latest numbers of the registered voters per province can be found here.
http://www.eck.or.ke/downloads...rative.pdf


Note also that Kibaki won convincingly in the following constituencies with more than 100 000 registered voters.

Juja: 163 657
Nithi: 123 996
North Imenti 123 948
Kiambaa 111 618
Kikuyu 106 688

For reference the average constituency has about 68 000 voters.

The second argument about the dwindling Raila lead should have been buttressed by explaining or providing the statistics of the constituencies that had been counted when this seemingly insurmountable lead was achieved and the ones that were yet to be counted. I'm sure a huge organization like human rights watch doesn't lack the resources to do so. They'll probably find that most of the votes coming from upper eastern home of the Meru and The Embu had yet to be counted, as well as the results from Nairobi, a province that Kibaki won, though slightly as well as from some parts of central. A sturdy of the figures coming from Kibaki strongholds show no great anomalies in terms of voter turnout which was very high due to the importance of this particular election.

Lastly, if the case is top be made for rigging, then i would have been better to quote the EU observers, but someone has made the point that sighted irregularities in 2 constituencies do not automatically prove, a large scheme of fraud. Lastly, lets wait for the investigators to pass their verdict. The country still operates under the edict of Innocent until proven Guilty.

The Culprits
written by James Macharia , March 17, 2008

The report desperately tries to link the perpetrators to top flight officials of both parties and fails. We are supposed to believe that just because the people organising the Naivasha/Nakuru violence had organised the PNU campaigns, thus they are supposed to have had links to the uppermost levels of government. Thus guilty by association.

Even Mr. William Ruto comes out as clean as a baby. Not even one statement that the man might have uttered that can be linked to direct incitement? Not even one o those infamous madoadoa statements, linked to a specific time and place?

cut and paste analysis
written by observer , March 17, 2008

You know after watching what has unfolded in Kenya and the way that international organizations have managed the situation I am staring not to trust anything I read.

I get the feeling they are like the world banks analysts who parachute into a situation cut and past the available martial in their air conditioned hotel rooms and then jet out of the country.

We have ad nauseam dealt with the KHNC and their response to the crisis on this blog along with the absence of empirical data to support the claims the forward. I am shocked to see them listed as a separate and independent source for the information on this report.

Short memories
written by Kim G , March 18, 2008

The Human Rights Watch can be forgiven for misinterpreting the situation for they are foreigners. They have been to Kenya for only a couple of months so its hard for them to understand how a constituency can vote for a presidential candidate from one party and a parliamentary candidate from an opposing party. Thats the intricacies of Kenyan politics that foreigners cannot understand.

But Kenyans are also to blame for their own short memories. In my conversations with friends and relatives, hardly anyone remembers the tribal clashes of the 1990s with calls for Majimbo and the removal of madoa doa. Nobody remembers about ole Ntimamas lie low like envelopes call. Kenyans have forgotten what KANU rule was like, when people like Ruto, Kosgey, Ntimama and Mudavadi were ministers. People have forgotten that in 2002, Ruto was on Mois side in opposing the Bomas Constitutional review conference.

Infact, I can tell that people have already forgotten events of the past two months. Its unbeleivable the varied interpretations of events that happened just a few weeks ago. In reaction to the above Human Rights Watch report, the Kenyan media chose to highlight the part about Police Brutality. No mention of ethnic cleansing in Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza. Little mention of Mungiki in Naivasha and Nakuru.

With such short memories, it shouldnt surprise anyone when we find ourselves in similar situation very soon.

diplomacy now?
written by Stephen Wanyama , March 18, 2008

I really wonder that all these reports should skirt over what is really the main and central issue, the maniacal and obsessively violent streak in the ODM leader and Prime Minister darling's career.

You need to be very young, maybe even under ten not to have understood the implications of the call for Majimbo. There is no reason why HRW should attempt to excuse the ODM when it was very clear, not just from campaign rhetoric but also from our history (as HRW confess) that Majimbo has since independence only ever had one translation. Anyone hearing a call for Majimbo knows exactly what it means, whether it is a Luo at the Coast or at Fort Ternan who previously suffered such political sentiment, or the Kisii in Molo who was expelled on account of Majimbo or the Kikuyu in Turbo or Burnt Forest, the ODM knew and Kenyans knew exactly what Majimbo meant.

But that is not the end of it. It was always patently clear that the ODM leadership at the very top had a very strong antipathy towards the Kikuyu people. It is not just the articles that people like Muluka wrote, or the 'adui' and 'mtalia when I get elected' sentiments of the future Prime Minister but across the board, from arguments about rent and the stock market, to arguments about Kikuyus ruling forever (secret pact between Uhuru and Kibaki), to the aforementioned ODM argument that Central province gave the least to the Exchequer but drew the most, the ODM hierarchy in its entirety was composed of Kikuyu-haters. I defy anyone on these pages to point at anyone who supported the ODM but did not bear some conspiracy theory about how the Kikuyu (and GEMA) dominated this country to its detriment. The ODM newspaper, and the ODM journalists, the ODM intellectuals and the ODM rabble, the message was always the same, vote Raila to free Kenya from 45 years of Kikuyu domination. On the streets in the forums and in the eating houses that was the clear message down the ranks.

Donald Kipkorir and other ODMers still persist with this thought, even here there are always commentators who come in and say how much they hate Kikuyu folk and how they must be cut down to size. Raila underlined it when he tacitly okayed attacks on Kikuyu people (remember the Kikuyu speech) and Balala made it exactly clear what the ODM was about in the Lesotho comments. Now I do not know how much clearer the ODM should get before Human Rights Watch can hear what they are saying.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but this section was written by an idiot.

Arguably, it was the governments ban on public gatherings that set the stage for violent confrontations between police and angry opposition supporters. Attempts to enforce the illegal ban led to many unnecessary deaths and rampant police abuses. The ban also required considerable police resources that might have been more usefully employed protecting citizens and displaced persons elsewhere in the country. The ban was finally lifted on February 8.The government also finally lifted its ban on live broadcasts on February 4 after more than a month.241 Justified by the government as a necessary measure to control hate speech, the ban was widely condemned by international and national human rights organizations as an attempt to control basic information about the crisis.

Observer,
Apparently Maina made a comment about KenyaImagine saying that we hate him, that we have been waging a personal attack on him.

(As flattered as we should be be about *that* misassessment from *this* man, which probably gives us some moral grandeur, we still would like to inquire where he has allegedly made the comment. Could you please give the source? Thanks. Eds.)

He still insists that there has been no ethnic cleansing, it is political violence with ethnic undertones. Quite predictably, he has said nothing of the Lesotho speech.

Macharia, Observer, and other true Kenyans
Let's get together and change this country. The real question is how to win the ODM people over. There is a very good chance that now that they have got power they will prove less hateful and ultimately easier to convert. At the end of the day, I am sure we all want the same things. The violence has made it very clear for example that ethnic-baiting and ethnic-violence know no borders and that we are all after peace and prosperity. I say, let's give it a shot, even though I have to agree with Dr. Phil that there are close to 0% reasonable people in that party.

re: Rigging
written by a guest , March 24, 2008

However owing to the strangely unequal representation in different constituencies, it is quite possible for Kibaki to win the election even if he won 92 constituencies (and the 16 Kalonzo ones where he didn't score as high) to Railas 101. The Central province is the 2nd worst represented province in the whole country only next to Nairobi.

Mr. Macharia, I'm with you 100% however
the statement in bold depends on what you mean by representation. The pecularity, is that while central province has more registered voters, Nyanza has more people in it, thus if we were to take the actual number of people and not just registered voters, central is better represented than Nyanza. Central as per 1999 figures 1 MP for about 128 000 people and Nyanza 1 MP for about 137 000 people. However your central argument that with the number of registered voters, Nyanza has an advantage of 5 seats and thus the distortion of reading number of votes from parliamentary seats is true. This data comes from 1999 but things haven't changed much since.
Kenya Population 1999.