This is something I have been mulling about for quite a while and became fully crystallized shortly after the just-concluded elections:
What is the point of voting in Kenya or any African country with the level of corruption and impunity that Kenya has? I was going to add “and level of ethnic polarization” but I long ago embraced the reality that is the “tyranny of numbers”: This because elections, in all countries save America**, is about the raw numbers, not necessarily about across-the-board appeal.
** – America has the Electoral College that actually decides the presidency.
Back to the topic of this piece, what is the point of standing in line, in the hot African sun, for hours on end, only to have one’s vote disappear or mutate into something other than the original choice somewhere between Form 34A, Form 34B and when the electoral body finally announces the results?
How credible is an election process when the electoral body (IEBC) “certifies” the final tally of the race in favor of a candidate (Uhuru Kenyatta) even as its CEO Ezra Chiloba asks the competitor (NASA) for “more time” to avail the vote tallies on Forms 34A (because) only forms 34B are available for presentation”.
Seriously?
So how does the IEBC certify and call an election in favor of a candidate without the raw data found on Form 34A?
Simple:
The Returning Officers write in whatever figures they want on Form 34B – because they don’t have the original figures found on Form 34A. This is how the 2017 General Elections played out regardless of what anyone – John Kerry, AU, UN, Thabo Mbeki – would like us to believe.
According to BF, frankly common sense, a process is NOT, can NOT be certified or validated without the (raw/original) data i.e. the output said process is supposed to generate. In this case, the vote tallying process was short-circuited because the raw data (votes on Form 34A) that Chiloba claimed he did not have were effectively falsified (onto Form 34B by the ROs) in favor of Uhuru Kenyatta.
NOTE: Falsification of data is the Number 1 method of biasing nearly all processes – including voting.
To put it bluntly, Mr. Chiloba and co. were buying time to “generate” i.e. make up data – in lieu of the missing and official Form 34As – onto Forms 34B.
Any competent and ethical auditor would invalidate any (process) conclusion arrived at without valid supporting raw data.
“Raw data” is defined as data collected from the source, in this case, the actual vote totals written onto Form 34A.
People, Kenyans, say whatever you want, and I say this with an election outcome that is a fait accompli i.e. done, kwisha, finito!
W.E….H.A.V.E…..B.E.E.N…..H.A.D.
We have been had.
Conned. Bamboozled. Ripped off and given results that were rigged from the get go and there is little anyone of us can do about it.
Mta-do?
And along the way, those sworn to serve and protect all – even members of the opposition – brutalized 6-month Baby Samantha Pendo.
Yes I went there – to illustrate the character of the primary actors and beneficiaries of the charade that was the 2016 General Elections.
When I mentioned Ezra Chiloba’s plea to NASA, someone pointed to the comments from John Kerry, the UN and EU in support of the victorious Jubilee Party – a classic end-justifies-the-means mindset. I reminded this individual of his side’s hand-wringing when the same US, UN & EU called for “essential contacts only” because their president and his deputy were crimes-against-humanity suspects!
What these folks don’t understand is that it is not whether Raila loses or wins.
It is NOT about Raila.
It also has never been solely about the outcome – at least not for me; certainly not for BF – who is a slave to fidelity of processes – of any kind.
It has always been about the reliability and confidence, this with as high a level (Confidence Level) as reasonably possible – in the vote tallying process – of our electioneering process.
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