The East African Standard reports:
The Electoral Commission of Kenya has declared President Mwai Kibaki the winner of the 2007 polls and he was immediately sworn in at State House gardens, Nairobi. He will now serve a second term in office.
The election was close, and various news reports for days had indicated that the challenger, Rail Odinga, was leading vote counts. The official result is:
-
Kibaki 4,584,721
Odinga 4,352,993
Despite the news reports that the official result has been declared (and the ‘winner’ sworn in!), a check of the Electoral Commission website at around noon (west coast North America time) still says, “These results are provisional; winning candidate not yet declared.” It also shows Odinga with just over 1.5 million votes and Mwai with about 1.1 million. There were seven other candidates, but only one with over 100,000 (and actually only that one with even 5,000 in this partial return).
The outcome is “headed for a major dispute.”
In the parliamentary elections, several close allies of the (allegedly) reelected President, including the Vice President as 12 of 32 cabinet members, were defeated.
As I said in the previous Kenya planting, at the time of the “Oranges and Bananas” constitutional referendum, Kenya’s president is popularly elected, but the government structure is almost parliamentary. The President must be a member of the National Assembly, and he appoints (and may dismiss) a vice president from among the members of the National Assembly. The VP is defined as “the principal assistant of the President in the discharge of his functions.â€
The presidential election rules are regionally qualified plurality, or what is sometimes known as a “distribution requirement.” The winner must have a nationwide plurality and at least 25% in at least five of the eight provinces. It appears that the dispute in this election concerns the plurality itself, rather than the distribution.
It is virtually impossible to exercise First world’s style democracy in third world Africa. Most of our leaders practice it simply to please the first world because it has been imposed on them. They want to appear democratic in the eyes of the first world while in their hearts, they are not ready to concede defeat (eating the cake and still have it!). They believe that being a president gives you the right to be owner of that country while the rest are just tenants. This is also fueled by the fact that some first world leaders are using our presidents as their agents to loot our wealth in exchange for guaranteeing their presidency and ill-gotten wealth. That is why it is very difficult for Africans to break the the chain poverty.
In my opinion, we need to have African version of democracy to get away with rigging problems and its consequences in terms of lives of innocent civilians. The version shall be as follows:
1. We need to have an African Electoral Commission and African Electoral Court located at AU Head Quarters. The two instruments shall be manned by competent staff picked from member states who have a record of high degree of integrity in the course of executing their duties.
2. All elections in African countries shall be conducted, coordinated and concluded by African Electoral Commission. The team from the commission will have to be formed to conduct any election in African countries. The membership of that team shall not include individuals from the country in the process of election. Each polling station shall have at least two representatives from this commission who have final authority on the conduct of the electoral process. Observers from countries outside the continent will have to be invited to witness the exercise and give their opinion on the transparency of the exercise.
3. The results of the election shall be announced by the Chairman of the African Electoral Commission at his head office, in the presence of all substantial contesters (those who got at least 5% of the votes).
4. In case of any disagreement, the complaining part shall lodge his/her complaints with African Electoral Court, which shall, within the period of six months, settle the appeal and adjudicate the case. The decision given by the court shall be final.
I believe that institutionalization of such a mechanism will, by and large, resolve the dirty processes we used to witness in Africa and increase the confidence of the people and their leaders. It will give Africans opportunity to make critical decisions affecting us through our own instruments and hence put continental interests first.
In case, you agree with this way of thinking and want to see this charted forward, please contact me via the following email- kalutajr@hotmail.com.
I will be happy to form a network of like-minded Africans to ensure that the above proposed mechanism is propagated and institutionalized for the benefits of our continent.
Seed planted by Kalutajr — 02 January 2008 @ 18:20
Pardon the threadmancy, there’s a new right-wing criticism of Obama linking him to Odinga, who is described as a radical Marxist pandering to radical Islamists and perpetrator of Rwanda-style genocide during the election violence.
The most reasonable sounding criticism is here, but I don’t know what the slant is of the writer here, and I know bugger all about Kenya. Was hoping you might know something about this, or at least point me to someone who does.
Seed planted by Antiquated Tory — 21 October 2008 @ 18:19