By Dorcas S
With the elections about 60 days away, the old new Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has sacked its Procurement Director Lawy Aura because of “incompetence and delay in the procurement of ballot papers”; this less than two months after suspending its ICT Director, James Muhati following questions over the reliability of the electronic system and his refusal to cooperate in ongoing audit of the ICT systems for the upcoming elections.
And the dysfunction at the electoral body doesn’t end with personnel turnover, Redwood Shores-based tech giant Oracle warned that the software Kenya is poised to use in the voting equipment “could be fake”.
Additionally, after ululating over NASA’s decision to launch parallel tallying of the ballots, the schizophrenic and erratic digital duo flipped a U-turn and decided to establish its own “multiplex vote tallying system for parallel counting of the votes”!
Finally, the president finally remembered that there were IDPs in the vote-rich regions of Gusiiland and Western as well – not just Nakuru and Coast.
So let’s summarize what I see as a prelude to an election-rigging set up:
1) Total personnel chaos at the country’s sole electioneering body; one with a record of machinations favoring the incumbency,
2) Probable “software glitch or whatever”-related malfeasance – a move President Kenyatta is very familiar with from his days as Minister of Finance,
3) Jubilee’s flip-flop on parallel vote-tallying centers,
4) A president throwing money at voters his government had ignored for the past 8+ years and what do we have?
An incumbency desperately and obviously prepping to pull the same nefarious ploy their predecessors have successfully deployed during past elections.
