Most people cannot stand a writer who reminds them of what he had written much earlier. But I shall risk such condemnation by quoting from a column I wrote back in December 2012, titled “The Biggest Challenge Facing the IEBC”
So what was that “biggest challenge”? Well, this is what I had to say (quoting from an article I had read in the online magazine, Slate):
“One of the main goals of an election is to produce credible evidence to the loser that he’s really lost…legitimacy matters, and it rests on a delicate understanding: the belief that those who govern have a right to govern. It’s devilishly hard to measure or quantify, but we know it when we see it.”
By now, most of us have heard bitter supporters of Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, speak of the IEBC in terms which leave no doubt of the contempt they feel about the two men who lad it.
In summarizing the critics’ perspective, I would say that CEO of the IEBC, James Oswago, and the Chairman, Ahmed Isaack Hassan, have inscribed their names in the annals of infamy. And that the judgment of future generations will be much harsher on these two men, than even the harshest judgments that we have heard thus far, cast on their tragic predecessor, Samuel Kivuitu.
Coming from the tragic disaster of the 2007 general election, there was perhaps no deeper national yearning than that we should have a well-organized, chaos-free, transparent election.
Instead, the IEBC gave us an absurd mockery of a presidential election, which has now become a global case-study on how not to conduct an election.
Of course, perception of what is a free and fair election is often coloured by the political tastes and preferences.
Be that as it may, there are certain questions which simply will not go away. But before we get into those, first a word about election-rigging in Kenya:
Any longtime observer of Kenyan politics will tell you that there are two constants to any Kenyan election: bribery and rigging. Sometimes these two have the desired effect; and sometimes they don’t. But the attempt is always made.
What I call bribery is usually euphemistically referred to in our media as “dishing out money to supporters”, a phrase which carries little moral condemnation. Rigging, however, is referred to by its proper name.
Let us leave aside for the moment the institutionalized rigging which accompanies ‘party nominations’ which precede general elections, and of which virtually every party leader in Kenya has been guilty at some point or other. In many advanced democracies, there is no pretense of such party nominations: the party big shots openly select the candidates for parliament, deciding quite freely who will be allowed to contest which seat. The US is one of the relatively few democracies in which the candidate has to worry about winning ‘primaries’. Elsewhere, being on good terms with the party leaders gives you what we call here, a ‘direct nomination’.
Now on this matter of rigging, we have a long and dishonourable history:
Back in the 1960s we had Tom Mboya and Mzee Jomo Kenyatta struggling to contain the potential socialist revolution that Bildad Kaggia and Jaramogi Odinga represented. This was not achieved without extensive rigging and bribery in the infamous "Little General Election" of 1966. Then came the unending efforts by former president Daniel arap Moi in the 80s and 90s, to rig this candidate out, or to rig this other one in, as he struggled to remain in power. One Mwai Kibaki, commenting contemptuously on the outcome of some electoral process in which he was the victim in those days, famously said that "Rigging should involve a little more intelligence than this."
But in time this same Mwai Kibaki became president. There is much we can praise him for. But putting an end to election rigging is not part of his legacy.
In brief, all our presidents have found election rigging a very useful tool in perpetuating their grip on power.
What is not commonly known though, is that rigging is not so much a matter of Kenyan presidents getting their hands dirty while trying to bring about a desired political outcome. Rather it will be ‘the political establishment’; the core insiders of the existing political dispensation, who are deeply invested in its perpetuation; these are the people who busily pull strings behind the scenes.
Next week we will explore further, the central role of election-rigging in determining the course of Kenyan politics.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment