Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: vooke on October 28, 2017, 05:03:00 PM
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Chebu has no idea how many ninjas voted
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This is ridiculous. how hard is it to count votes per polling station. Rumours are now that Uhuru is at 2.3M official tally ..
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I think we have to accept that as a people we are too corrupt, too deceitful, too tribal and too primitive to handle nationwide elections. This ought to be the last attempt at nationwide presidential elections. We need to be honest and give the parliamentary system a chance. Each county should have its own electoral commission like they do in the US, then the MP's can then vote for a PM.
Chebu has no idea how many ninjas voted
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By Eric Wafukho
Something happened on 26th October 2017 that will forever define the politics of Kenya . You see, it had been widely believed that Kenya was living a political lie in which numbers were cooked to precipitate or justify political outcomes. With the introduction of technology in transmission of election results, it had been feared that a mathematical algorithm may have been introduced to “smoothen” curves and predict desired outcomes. However, this requires that two most popular candidates do compete against each other. The withdrawal of Hon Raila Odinga from the race , who was a strong competitor of President Uhuru rendered any algorithm that may have been feared to exist ,redundant. The heavy campaign mounted by Jubilee and even defections by many NASA members to Jubilee meant that the numbers generated would represent the best that Jubilee strongholds could marshal. The 26th October 2017 election therefore served as a control experiment. Unknown to IEBC, mathematicians had already computed the numbers following closure of polling stations and estimated the time it would take to get results streaming into Bomas. Given that this particular election was for only one out of the six seats that were involved in the 8th August elections, the time taken to transmit results was already estimated and the clock began ticking. When Chebukati failed to give a presser at 10am , 12noon, 3pm and 6pm that was to indicate voter turn-out, he immediately caused investigators to go to work and ensure that the actual voter turnout would be independently established. This would prevent “stuffing” to suit a particular outcome. When asked at 7pm how many people had checked in, he gave a percentage of 48% but when asked what the exact number was, he said that he did not have all the details and was computing. How can you arrive at a %age without first having the number of voters? As it turned out, Kenya only had 3.5 million people who turned out to vote, well lower than the 6.5million that was stated. That meant that any additional figure beyond 3.5 million was a cooked figure unless IEBC came out clear. However, that is not where the point is. If Jubilee strongholds came out this well, does it mean that Kenya has always exaggerated her numbers of voters and that reality has caught up with us? Could it be that we are not as many voters as we claim but that we have been playing with numbers to achieve our political aim? If 3.5million people voted this time, then what changed that Jubilee could lose more than 4million people in support? These are the tough questions that politicians will need to ask themselves. I will not be surprised if IEBC manipulates the figures to bridge this gap of 4million votes but the facts will forever stay with us and politicians and demographers must now guide us out of self-imposed amnesia as a people.
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The EVID kits were supposed to transmit voterr ID’d every two hours. Means we should have had a good idea of the turnout even before end of the day on Thursday.
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It’s captured in KIEMS. Let me correct that. It should be captured in KIEMS.
Ideally it should be known when the last voter is identified at the polling station. To be fair, we don’t know and, I dare say, won’t know why Chebukati doesn’t know this fact. There are many possibilities, legit and otherwise. But IEBC is too opaque for me to even start guessing why. And they want to keep it that way.
The only thing I am certain about is I have no reason to trust anything IEBC says. Correction. I have good reasons to distrust what IEBC says in general.
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STAR-NATIONAL Resistance Movement leader Raila Odinga seems to have landed a bull from his turncoat ODM vice chairman Paul Otuoma, without breaking a sweat! An indignant Otuoma swore by his gods to give Raila a bull if President Uhuru Kenyatta would not garner over 50 per cent votes in Busia county in the October 26 repeat presidential polls. Otuoma, who lost the Busia governorship seat as an independent, turned against his erstwhile ODM boss, blaming him for the unanticipated loss after jumping ship to join Jubilee Party in backing Uhuru's reelection. Results from Busia county, however, are the opposite of Otuoma’s 50-plus target for his new master and Raila, without any hesitation, should signal his entrusted point-men or foot soldiers to go collect the bull and feast.
Otuoma was relying on the algorithm and at that time did not anticipate the impact of Raila's withdrawal.
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Looking at figures so far my prediction is around 40-45% turn out.Uhuru will end up with nearly 8m voted.
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Looking at figures so far my prediction is around 40-45% turn out.Uhuru will end up with nearly 8m voted.
I don’t know why Jubilee is rattled by poor turnout
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It’s captured in KIEMS. Let me correct that. It should be captured in KIEMS.
Ideally it should be known when the last voter is identified at the polling station. To be fair, we don’t know and, I dare say, won’t know why Chebukati doesn’t know this fact. There are many possibilities, legit and otherwise. But IEBC is too opaque for me to even start guessing why. And they want to keep it that way.
The only thing I am certain about is I have no reason to trust anything IEBC says. Correction. I have good reasons to distrust what IEBC says in general.
There was an explanation by Gulihe where the 48% came from...something like that was 48% of the registered voters in opened stations identified bla bla.
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It’s captured in KIEMS. Let me correct that. It should be captured in KIEMS.
Ideally it should be known when the last voter is identified at the polling station. To be fair, we don’t know and, I dare say, won’t know why Chebukati doesn’t know this fact. There are many possibilities, legit and otherwise. But IEBC is too opaque for me to even start guessing why. And they want to keep it that way.
The only thing I am certain about is I have no reason to trust anything IEBC says. Correction. I have good reasons to distrust what IEBC says in general.
There was an explanation by Gulihe where the 48% came from...something like that was 48% of the registered voters in opened stations identified bla bla.
Ok. My interest has been sporadic, so I have not kept up with much of what's going on.
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Guliye "We will not be relying on the KIEMS kit, we will rely on the forms being transmitted by scan/text which are arriving now".
Why was 25 Billion Kenyan taxpayers money used on technology for the elections?
He says since some voters were Identified manually the turnout data from the kits is incomplete hence inaccurate...but why not in the least share that?
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Uhuru will win with 7.5m plus
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Guliye "We will not be relying on the KIEMS kit, we will rely on the forms being transmitted by scan/text which are arriving now".
Why was 25 Billion Kenyan taxpayers money used on technology for the elections?
Those must be 34Bs. Because all 34As are in. No?
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Pretending to be dumb and deaf is nasa modus operandi.kit tranmsit those identified and for kits that transmitted to central servers..some voted manually after kits couldnt identify them..some kits completely failed...and some that work didnt transmit or transmitted later.
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Guliye "We will not be relying on the KIEMS kit, we will rely on the forms being transmitted by scan/text which are arriving now".
Why was 25 Billion Kenyan taxpayers money used on technology for the elections?
Those must be 34Bs. Because all 34As are in. No?
No...he was explaining why they have difficulties establishing the turnout....note, turn out not results is the question.
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Guliye "We will not be relying on the KIEMS kit, we will rely on the forms being transmitted by scan/text which are arriving now".
Why was 25 Billion Kenyan taxpayers money used on technology for the elections?
Those must be 34Bs. Because all 34As are in. No?
No...he was explaining why they have difficulties establishing the turnout....note, turn out not results is the question.
So what forms are these they are relying on?
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This thing is just confusing.iebc is now claiming that numbers displayed by media does not reflect their actual tabulation. Where did nation get the numbers they were displaying from
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This thing is just confusing.iebc is now claiming that numbers displayed by media does not reflect their actual tabulation. Where did nation get the numbers they were displaying from
IEBC seems to love it when it is confusing. They gravitate towards obscurity, each and every chance they get.
I have just found this on twitter. Okiya Matata or whoever files the petition in the supreme court will probably include this as an exhibit.
Invalid Tweet ID
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This is ridiculous. how hard is it to count votes per polling station. Rumours are now that Uhuru is at 2.3M official tally ..
Wewe Wacha rumours bwana. Moass inseam tyranny is real... 50 million votes for uhuru. Lol
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This thing is just confusing.iebc is now claiming that numbers displayed by media does not reflect their actual tabulation. Where did nation get the numbers they were displaying from
IEBC seems to love it when it is confusing. They gravitate towards obscurity, each and every chance they get.
I have just found this on twitter. Okiya Matata or whoever files the petition in the supreme court will probably include this as an exhibit.
Invalid Tweet ID
Yep, typical iebc, confused until they declare the preselected "winner" with rock solid unwavering confidence.
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This thing is just confusing.iebc is now claiming that numbers displayed by media does not reflect their actual tabulation. Where did nation get the numbers they were displaying from
IEBC seems to love it when it is confusing. They gravitate towards obscurity, each and every chance they get.
I have just found this on twitter. Okiya Matata or whoever files the petition in the supreme court will probably include this as an exhibit.
Invalid Tweet ID
Yep, typical iebc, confused until they declare the preselected "winner" with rock solid unwavering confidence.
And it's totally insane to make voter turnout dependent on results forms(whether 34A or 34B). It's just insane. Even without those suspiciously identified voters. Turnout is the most independent variable in this election.
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The EVID kits were supposed to transmit voterr ID’d every two hours. Means we should have had a good idea of the turnout even before end of the day on Thursday.
I'm pretty sure that the electoral fraudsters had the real time turnout number throughout the day. They know Odinga is probably right.
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The EVID kits were supposed to transmit voterr ID’d every two hours. Means we should have had a good idea of the turnout even before end of the day on Thursday.
I'm pretty sure that the electoral fraudsters had the real time turnout number throughout the day. They know Odinga is probably right.
I like to think that too. Or very nearly real time. Turnout is an integer that can fit comfortably into 4 bytes. There is no reason why this would be difficult to transmit even as scans come in without issues.
I am informed they completely avoided to carry out any audits on the system. I wonder if the new laws cover their asses on this point.
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The EVID kits were supposed to transmit voterr ID’d every two hours. Means we should have had a good idea of the turnout even before end of the day on Thursday.
I'm pretty sure that the electoral fraudsters had the real time turnout number throughout the day. They know Odinga is probably right.
I like to think that too. Or very nearly real time. Turnout is an integer that can fit comfortably into 4 bytes. There is no reason why this would be difficult to transmit even as scans come in without issues.
I am informed they completely avoided to carry out any audits on the system. I wonder if the new laws cover their asses on this point.
Well the new laws effectively ditch the IT system. Nobody would bother auditing a defunct system, would they?
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The EVID kits were supposed to transmit voterr ID’d every two hours. Means we should have had a good idea of the turnout even before end of the day on Thursday.
I'm pretty sure that the electoral fraudsters had the real time turnout number throughout the day. They know Odinga is probably right.
I like to think that too. Or very nearly real time. Turnout is an integer that can fit comfortably into 4 bytes. There is no reason why this would be difficult to transmit even as scans come in without issues.
I am informed they completely avoided to carry out any audits on the system. I wonder if the new laws cover their asses on this point.
Well the new laws effectively ditch the IT system. Nobody would bother auditing a defunct system, would they?
Did this whole “election” happen under the new laws? I am not sure. But I am thinking part of it may have happened under the old laws.
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Kits have 98% accuracy meaning they can ID 98% of all the voters on the polling station register. They a,so have a 5% failure rate meaning of all the kits deployed 95% worked.
98% of 95% is 93%
Means we can comfortably measure 93% turnout by relying on the kits. Ghuliye was bullshitting.
93% is a figure they could have given with disclaimer and everyone would have bought it.
NASWA Petition should among others demand this figure
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Kits have 98% accuracy meaning they can ID 98% of all the voters on the polling station register. They a,so have a 5% failure rate meaning of all the kits deployed 95% worked.
98% of 95% is 93%
Means we can comfortably measure 93% turnout by relying on the kits. Ghuliye was bullshitting.
93% is a figure they could have given with disclaimer and everyone would have bought it.
NASWA Petition should among others demand this figure
I am told that it’s problematic to add a voter to KIEMS unless you know their info and whether they have voted. It’s like a natural barrier against fake turnouts.
The viable workaround is to heavily rely on comblimendary mechanisms. The other one would be to interfere with the KIEMS turnout transmission. There are different ways that can be accomplished including setting up dummy servers.
Either way, that to me is an argument for eliminating comblimendary mechanisms in this process.
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Kits have 98% accuracy meaning they can ID 98% of all the voters on the polling station register. They a,so have a 5% failure rate meaning of all the kits deployed 95% worked.
98% of 95% is 93%
Means we can comfortably measure 93% turnout by relying on the kits. Ghuliye was bullshitting.
93% is a figure they could have given with disclaimer and everyone would have bought it.
NASWA Petition should among others demand this figure
I am told that it’s problematic to add a voter to KIEMS unless you know their info and whether they have voted. It’s like a natural barrier against fake turnouts.
The viable workaround is to heavily rely on comblimendary mechanisms. The other one would be to interfere with the KIEMS turnout transmission. There are different ways that can be accomplished including setting up dummy servers.
Either way, that to me is an argument for eliminating comblimendary mechanisms in this process.
What do you mean adding a voter to KIEMS?
I’m talking about the kits counting the voters they have ID’d
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Kits have 98% accuracy meaning they can ID 98% of all the voters on the polling station register. They a,so have a 5% failure rate meaning of all the kits deployed 95% worked.
98% of 95% is 93%
Means we can comfortably measure 93% turnout by relying on the kits. Ghuliye was bullshitting.
93% is a figure they could have given with disclaimer and everyone would have bought it.
NASWA Petition should among others demand this figure
I am told that it’s problematic to add a voter to KIEMS unless you know their info and whether they have voted. It’s like a natural barrier against fake turnouts.
The viable workaround is to heavily rely on comblimendary mechanisms. The other one would be to interfere with the KIEMS turnout transmission. There are different ways that can be accomplished including setting up dummy servers.
Either way, that to me is an argument for eliminating comblimendary mechanisms in this process.
What do you mean adding a voter to KIEMS?
I’m talking about the kits counting the voters they have ID’d
I mean IDing one to allow them to vote. It is difficult to just ratchet up the numbers on those kits without actually having a real voter show up to vote. Making up for an unpretty turnout is not easy using the kits.
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Reality/Perception is King. The reporting throughout the day by reporters and observers had determined that the repeat elections was a flop and the spinning began too late after the reality/perception had settled. People saw the vindios and the pictures of empty polling stations, Iebc Workers sleeping and sitting idle. That's what matters. The campaign to change the perception led by Ruto is too little too late. Uthamaki wanted to talk and to postpone the elections but Ruto insisted that the repeat has to be held to send a message to Raila that he is a nobody. The unintended consequence is that the repeat has emboldened Raila, emboldened his supporters as they discovered that Ouruto can steal NASA's numbers when they vote but they cannot steal their numbers when they refuse to vote. The people are slowly finding their people power to counter the state power.
The EVID kits were supposed to transmit voterr ID’d every two hours. Means we should have had a good idea of the turnout even before end of the day on Thursday.
I'm pretty sure that the electoral fraudsters had the real time turnout number throughout the day. They know Odinga is probably right.
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Kits have 98% accuracy meaning they can ID 98% of all the voters on the polling station register. They a,so have a 5% failure rate meaning of all the kits deployed 95% worked.
98% of 95% is 93%
Means we can comfortably measure 93% turnout by relying on the kits. Ghuliye was bullshitting.
93% is a figure they could have given with disclaimer and everyone would have bought it.
NASWA Petition should among others demand this figure
I am told that it’s problematic to add a voter to KIEMS unless you know their info and whether they have voted. It’s like a natural barrier against fake turnouts.
The viable workaround is to heavily rely on comblimendary mechanisms. The other one would be to interfere with the KIEMS turnout transmission. There are different ways that can be accomplished including setting up dummy servers.
Either way, that to me is an argument for eliminating comblimendary mechanisms in this process.
What do you mean adding a voter to KIEMS?
I’m talking about the kits counting the voters they have ID’d
I mean IDing one to allow them to vote. It is difficult to just ratchet up the numbers on those kits without actually having a real voter show up to vote. Making up for an unpretty turnout is not easy using the kits.
Oh yeah.
NASWA will be damned for not aksin for this
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I am told that it’s problematic to add a voter to KIEMS unless you know their info and whether they have voted. It’s like a natural barrier against fake turnouts.
The viable workaround is to heavily rely on comblimendary mechanisms. The other one would be to interfere with the KIEMS turnout transmission. There are different ways that can be accomplished including setting up dummy servers.
Either way, that to me is an argument for eliminating comblimendary mechanisms in this process.
What do you mean adding a voter to KIEMS?
I’m talking about the kits counting the voters they have ID’d
I mean IDing one to allow them to vote. It is difficult to just ratchet up the numbers on those kits without actually having a real voter show up to vote. Making up for an unpretty turnout is not easy using the kits.
Oh yeah.
NASWA will be damned for not aksin for this
They may ask for it, but they wont get it. In fact the next version SCOK might be in no position(shrunken balls) to even grant an order that will be defied anyway.
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The rained SCOK is already envisioned and that is why NASA is not putting its eggs in the legal basket.
I am told that it’s problematic to add a voter to KIEMS unless you know their info and whether they have voted. It’s like a natural barrier against fake turnouts.
The viable workaround is to heavily rely on comblimendary mechanisms. The other one would be to interfere with the KIEMS turnout transmission. There are different ways that can be accomplished including setting up dummy servers.
Either way, that to me is an argument for eliminating comblimendary mechanisms in this process.
What do you mean adding a voter to KIEMS?
I’m talking about the kits counting the voters they have ID’d
I mean IDing one to allow them to vote. It is difficult to just ratchet up the numbers on those kits without actually having a real voter show up to vote. Making up for an unpretty turnout is not easy using the kits.
Oh yeah.
NASWA will be damned for not aksin for this
They may ask for it, but they wont get it. In fact the next version SCOK might be in no position(shrunken balls) to even grant an order that will be defied anyway.
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http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/oped/comment/Kenyatta-options-and-lessons-Kenya-elections/434750-4160112-wgrqyr/index.html
By WACHIRA MAINA
More by this Author
In 1966, President Jomo Kenyatta amended the Constitution to force 29 members of the National Assembly and the Senate who had defected from the ruling party, Kanu, to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s Kenya People’s Union, (KPU), into a series of by-elections that came to be called “the little general election.”
Kanu won a majority of the now vacant seats and though KPU won the popular vote, Jomo Kenyatta was able to leverage the result to further amend the Constitution and, eventually, decimate the opposition.
Fifty years later, his son President Uhuru Kenyatta, lacking the legal means to force his opposition into a similar debacle, rushed headlong into an election boycotted by his principal opponent, Raila Odinga, and unwittingly converted what should have been a coronation into a referendum on his government.
The results — already controversial because the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has results from areas that never voted – will almost certainly damage and weaken Uhuru’s political authority beyond repair.
This was supposed to be the election that buried Odinga’s political career like the little general election buried his father’s. Instead, it will realise none Uhuru’s hopes and bring about all the consequences that a more reflective leader would have foreseen.
Shrunken electoral mandate
First, it will bolster Odinga’s political legitimacy as it retrospectively undermines Uhuru’s earlier claim that he had overwhelmingly won the election of August 8.
Second, it will strengthen deputy president William Ruto, as Kenyatta becomes ever more reliant on him.
Third, a weakened Uhuru must become more authoritarian and yet, without the reservoirs of legitimacy that come from an electoral mandate, he will find the population increasingly resistant. The upshot will be that what was initially a political crisis will metastasise, becoming a constitutional crisis that must undermine the very stability that the business community craved when they argued for an early election.
Central to Kenyatta’s problems is his shrunken electoral mandate. The final turnout figures have not been announced. The chair of the IEBC, Wafula Chebukati, had initially announced a voter turnout of 48 per cent.
No sooner had he done that than he tried to walk that number back — saying it was “a best estimate” — as results from monitors in the field showed that this was patently false. On the most optimistic outlook, the real number will probably be nearer or lower than 40 per cent. If that turns out to be the case, the implications are devastating.
In the first election on August 8, five out of every six registered voters turned out to vote. A 40 per cent — or lower — turnout means that less than three out of six voters have come out to vote barely two months later.
This raises six problems. One, the vote is essentially a Kikuyu/Kalenjin vote, a hugely unsettling political fact in a country of 44 ethnic groups.
Two, voter turnout among the Kikuyus and the Kalenjin did not come anywhere near what it was in August. Though electoral studies show that such a turnout is normal in electoral reruns, Kenyatta’s opponents will seize on this as proof of, at best, growing fatigue and at worst, dwindling support for Kenyatta in his own backyard.
Three, Odinga will spin the low turnout as his doing, evidence, he will say, of a country responding to his call to boycott the election.
Divisive figures
Four, it will leave Kenya even more divided than it was before: Kenyatta has been as divisive a figure as his main opponent Odinga. This election has sharpened those divisions and Kenyatta’s headstrong — some would say hubristic — refusal to even consider putting off the vote to increase cross-party trust and improve the environment, will have curdled political sentiment, perhaps irretrievably.
Five, the result will reenergise Odinga and, thus pumped up, he will be more intransigent to any overtures from Kenyatta.
Six, and most unsettling from an ethnic voting point, the result in central Kenya exposes Kenyatta’s tenuous hold on the Kikuyu. The turnout supports what many always feared, Kenyatta’s base is anti-Raila rather than pro-Uhuru: Without Odinga in the running, they were not motivated to vote.
Ruto, Kenyatta’s presumptive heir, will note this with alarm. Can Kenyatta really deliver the Kikuyu vote to him in 2022?
Few unattractive options
Unfortunately, Kenyatta has few options now and none are attractive. This has exposed his soft underbelly, serving up a lame duck second term even if he is able to hold on to the end of his presidency. That has three implications, each of which he will find unsettling:
One, looking at these numbers any Nasa leader Kenyatta reaches out to with promises of goodies so as to outflank Odinga will be coy. Is it worthwhile to accept a position in an administration at a time when that seems so obviously like a kiss of death?
Two, that Kenyatta is serving his last term will fray his own support within Jubilee, a party teeming with young politicians with political gifts to burn and years of political life ahead. If they see Kenyatta as a liability — as these numbers say that he is — their support will be mostly equivocal and low key, all geared to wait out Kenyatta’s five years as they consolidate their experience.
Three, unable to co-opt the opposition, Kenyatta will be thrown back on his allies, principally Ruto, on whom he must increasingly rely to get his measures through parliament. Ruto in turn will have two concerns: First, a legitimate worry — in the wake of this election — that he cannot rely on Kenyatta to deliver the Kikuyu block and second, a realisation that though another Kikuyu/Kalenjin alliance remains numerically attractive, fronting it in 2022 will be fatally toxic in terms of ethnic relations in Kenya.
At a minimum, Ruto must see that any winning future coalition must reach beyond Mt Kenya and the central highlands of the Rift Valley.
Kenyatta has just thrown his deputy a curve-ball: Ruto must now try to keep his current coalition in power even as he cobbles up a wider coalition that can win in 2022.
Political business
This dual play is both a boon and a bane from where Kenyatta sits: In keeping the current coalition together Ruto will be helping keep Kenyatta in power but whatever he does to build a new coalition for 2022 will undermine him.
And then there are Kenyatta’s “political business” allies, the oligarchs who finance his politics and the real power behind the throne. Many will already have been thinking ahead, scouting for politicians to fund for 2022 as Kenyatta’s second term ends. This election result must have shocked them. Some will recalculate their risks; some may even defect — if not to the opposition then to the heir apparent, Ruto — especially if the crisis deepens.
In a way, this was inevitable: In five years, Kenyatta has done everything to undermine institutions and empower the “contractor elite” — the oligarchs — around him.
That he must soon find that very elite fickle in their support is his own doing. Two thousand years ago Aristotle presciently said that democracy — together with its institutions — was safer than oligarchy because oligarchies suffer a double risk.
First, oligarchs often fall out with each other and, second— and more usually — they invariably fall out with the people. A Kenyatta who cannot deliver the goods is ripe for betrayal by his allies. Thus abandoned, he will be further weakened if the opposition confronts him with violent upheavals.
Double crisis bites
Some will think that Kenyatta’s now fragile coalition can survive the coming turbulence. Perhaps that is so but it seems unlikely. Part of the problem is that the administration is facing deeper problems that will feed Kenyatta’s political nightmares. The economy is not doing well.
The political uncertainty has had an effect on it to be sure, but then so has the weather, with its knock-on effect on food production. Our growing debt and its onerous interest repayments will eventually bite. Given the administration’s appetite for expensive debt — a few other costly loans are lined up — there is more trouble to come.
Juggling a tanking economy and fissiparous politics would tax a leader with better political skills and a more equable temper than Kenyatta, who started out desperate to be liked in 2013 and now seems keener to be feared. Without political resources to draw down and short of economic performance to brag about, he will — at least in the short run — turn to repression, becoming more authoritarian as the double crisis bites.
Unfortunately, the authoritarian option is never a good one. First, autocracy invariably solves all political conflicts violently. Second, its success depends on the coherence of the ruling elite. Let’s explore each of these two problems.
Using violence to solve political problems is both inefficient and unpredictable. It is inefficient because it means significant investments in surveillance and control. It is unpredictable because what the state can do, the public can do too.
The dramatic collapse of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Caeusescu in December 1989 is a case in point. The dictator had run a vicious and violent regime. In the face of economic crisis, he imposed a severe austerity programme that eventually provoked riots in the town of Timisoara, Romania’s third largest city and a key economic and cultural centre.
Caeusescu called for a rally in Bucharest, the capital city, intending to condemn the protestors and check the spread of discontent. The crowd grew unruly and demanded that the dictator step down. Caeusescu unleashed his dreaded security forces, the Securitate, on them but in the week that followed protests flared up across the country.
At that point, the security forces baulked at shooting at the unarmed public and Caeusescu then fled Bucharest with his wife, deputy prime minister Elena Caeusescu, on December 22, 1989. Three days later he was arrested, summarily tried and executed on Christmas Day.
The rapid collapse of longtime Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, hot on the heels of violent protests triggered by the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, a hawker, on December 17, 2010, following economic and political crises, underlines the same lesson.
Opposition Nasa supporters engage anti-riot policemen in Kawangware, Nairobi on October 27, 2017. The government has increased police presence around the country. PHOTO | AFP
That brings the second point into play: The coherence of the ruling elite. All regimes must strike some bargain with their supporters, implicitly or explicitly.
Repression — as happened in Romania and Tunisia — forces regime supporters to recalculate the actuarial risk of losing power. Whether repression succeeds over time also depends on the co-operation of the security forces. When there is an economic crisis — such as the one we seem headed into — and the country is sharply and deeply divided, as Kenya was and is now more so, there is a dual risk.
The economic crisis erodes the support of the political elite and the political divisions fragment the security forces into ethnic militia. This means that though Kenyatta may be tempted by the authoritarian option, it is a dangerous and fickle mistress that he will be courting.
Majority rule
Given this, his advisers — who have been criminally inept in the past — may suggest that he tries, instead, a softer version of authoritarianism, what is often called “rule by law” rather than the “rule of law.” According to Javier Corrales’ essay, Autocratic Legalism in Venezuela this softer authoritarianism has three elements: The use, abuse and non-use of the law in service of the presidency.
Given his legislative majorities, Kenyatta could find this appealing and cost-effective. He has already tried it, with some success, in the recent amendments to the election laws.
In some ways, Kenyatta will be genetically familiar with this instrumental use of the law. His father was a master of it. If the constitution did not give him power to do something that he desired to do, he simply ignored or amended it. In 1975, for example, he famously amended the Constitution and then backdated the amendment, all so that he could pardon his friend Paul Ngei, who had been barred from a by-election because he had committed an election offence, a crime for which the president could not pardon Ngei with the constitution as it then stood.
The problem with “autocratic legalism” is that it depends on a quiescent judiciary. Right now, there is a coterie of intrepid judges whom Kenyatta cannot bend to his will. These judges are backed by an unforgiving Constitution that, properly interpreted, will nullify the laws Kenyatta may need to achieve his aims.
Autocratic legalism then — and the soft authoritarianism that Kenyatta needs to govern a divided country over which he has lost political control — does not look like a feasible option.
This brings Kenyatta to the place where he was before this election: He urgently needs to talk to Raila Odinga. Ill-advised procrastination and a flawed election have robbed him of his two most precious assets: Initiative and leverage.
And, sadly, Kenya seems set to lose again, as it did the last time a Kenyatta and an Odinga quarrelled.
Wachira Maina is a constitutional lawyer.
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It takes JEBC 72hrs to release information they was supposed to have had 72hrs ago
(https://s1.postimg.org/7tv1xy0j5b/AFA73_B88-2_CFB-4_C49-9_DDC-1_DA188896594.jpg)
(https://s1.postimg.org/11a0bhc1gv/88555_D1_F-2_E9_F-47_C3-_B62_F-03_B4_F2_A102_BF.jpg)
(https://s1.postimg.org/4ofjz0949b/58669_DAD-_B51_D-4504-_A3_F7-9_F3_C032_CB3_DE.jpg)
(https://s1.postimg.org/27tbk30qcf/2_F8_D5_BCF-1_B8_D-425_E-88_F3-_FD353_F4_E44_D0.jpg)
Source
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Thought registered voters were 19.7m? Did (http://www.nipate.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5740.0;attach=382;image)2m folk die in the last two months?
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Jubilidiots are trying to be clever, they're are inflating their share by "killing" 2m registered voters
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Thought registered voters were 19.7m? Did (http://www.nipate.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5740.0;attach=382;image)2m folk die in the last two months?
Where did you get this?
Hope it’s no straw man bro
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Thought registered voters were 19.7m? Did 2m folk die in the last two months?
Where did you get this?
Hope it’s no straw man bro
It's the MOASS he's been peddling here, I am hoping that the reg voters is atleast correct.
On re-reading, I am beginning to read into this that the 2m "missing voters" are actually the votin dead. The padding that electoral fraudsters use to "win".
Good to see Chebukati rushing out his letter after Ruto was sweated by CNN earlier today. JEBC are in serious trouble.
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Thought registered voters were 19.7m? Did 2m folk die in the last two months?
Where did you get this?
Hope it’s no straw man bro
It's the MOASS he's been peddling here, I am hoping that the reg voters is atleast correct.
On re-reading, I am beginning to read into this that the 2m "missing voters" are actually the votin dead. The padding that electoral fraudsters use to "win".
Good to see Chebukati rushing out his letter after Ruto was sweated by CNN earlier today. JEBC are in serious trouble.
Ok
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Thought registered voters were 19.7m? Did 2m folk die in the last two months?
I think Chebukati is talking of turnout against the KIEMS kits that transmitted. I am past where I can be bothered to verify or pretend to try to make sense of these guys. I am particularly suspicious of "clarifications" about something as simple as turnout. How complicated can that be? They are best left to their devices until the announcement, then people can start raising the issues(because there will be plenty).
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I still don't get the turnout issue. Just release the actual correct results. It's 98%, isn't it? It's cooking that would complicate matters in a petition.
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This election was always about turn out after Raila ran away - and on this Jubilee have done very well - which is why NASA are angry about turn out - they were hoping to play the legitimacy card in their desperate quest for nusu-mkate - but here is Uhuru winning 7.5m despite violent disruptions and repression of voters.
I still don't get the turnout issue. Just release the actual correct results. It's 98%, isn't it? It's cooking that would complicate matters in a petition.
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How many voters were identified by the KIEMS kits?