Election Reviews Deep unease Over Rigging

On the road to 2017 elections, Kenyans are tempting fate and mocking God. The consequences seem obvious, but those in government seem to think it does not matter because they are in government. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission seems to think people do not notice its indifference or that it is Cord that will suffer.

If the by-elections in Kericho and Malindi are pointers to 2017, and they seem to be, then everything points to an election made deliberately difficult by hardline elements in government and an incompetent and largely partisan IEBC that is also permanently in denial and on the defensive.

On virtually everything to do with elections, time has stood still yet events and people have moved too fast for the Jubilee regime to put up a credible plan for retaining power and for the IEBC to clear its baggage and present itself as a trustworthy and acceptable referee in the upcoming elections.

Elections are being ran and will be ran exactly the way they were in 2013; with indifference to the sentiments of the Opposition and deferment to the government. Add to that developments on the political landscape and it gets clear why the signs are ominous for the country ahead of 2017.

First, the by-elections showed Jubilee’s political support base is shrinking and fracturing. The ruling coalition’s safest seats may be getting confined to central Kenya after Kanu rose from death to cause a scare in Kericho. From now on, the Rift Valley Jubilee base is a battleground.

Then there is the continuing rejection of Jubilee in areas where it was rejected in 2013. Jubilee has lost all the by-elections outside its Central and Rift Valley bases. Makueni, Matungulu, Siaya, Homa Bay, Bungoma, Kajiado Central, Masongaleni and now Malindi have all gone to Opposition despite spirited efforts by Jubilee to expand its regional support base. Jubilee lost a civic seat in Nyangores in Bomet and that may be what woke it up to fight tooth and nail in Kericho. It is only in Kabete that Jubilee has won a by-election.

Jubilee’s numerous forays into the Coast have borne no fruit and attempts to sponsor Kanu-style defections of the 1990s have equally fallen flat. If Gideon Mungaro could not deliver Malindi where he served as a respected and credible mayor for many years, nobody will.

Narok has erupted with battles pitting the Maasai against the Kipsigis and now against the Kikuyu. The appointment of Joseph ole Nkaisery to the Cabinet failed to sway Kajiado to Jubilee side.

A diminished and fractured Jubilee support base has implications on how the ruling coalition will approach and conduct itself in 2017 and also how Kenyans will respond. It was evident in Malindi and Kericho. State agencies played a major role in Malindi and Kericho. Military personnel and police were visibly present in the two regions. Nelson Marwa was clearly in charge of the National Government security agencies that blockaded Malindi. He was obviously acting on instructions from higher up. Marwa presided over a major scare mongering campaign supervising the packing Malindi with military personnel on tankers purporting to be keeping peace. This has never been seen before in a by-election. In the middle of the campaigns, the State came up with a narrative that Mungiki and other terror gangs were regrouping ahead of 2017. That narrative has since died. It was part of the scare mongering that will certainly reemerge to justify crackdown and blockade.

The last thing a people under a supposedly civilian government want to see is the military being deployed to man elections. Yet it was done in both Malindi and Kericho, presenting a threat to democracy and points to how a Jubilee under siege plans to approach 2017. The IEBC remains silent.

The buying of votes and voters particularly in Malindi was not an accident. Suspicious of the National Government and distrustful of the IEBC, ODM took it upon itself to arrest would-be vote buyers and safeguard the vote.

As Marwa supervised the blockade of Malindi, Kanu was also going through another blockade in Kericho on polling day. Kanu supporters believe stuffing of the ballot might have taken place while its agents were locked out. On this too, the IEBC has remained silent. Instead, it has focused on a lesser and diversionary so-called investigations of the involvement of Cabinet Secretary Charles Keter in the campaign. Nobody is investigating

Marwa.

All these are ominous signs about a year to the critical 2017 elections. They call into question the management of our elections, the competence and independence of the IEBC. They also show money is going to play a major role in the elections in mostly negative ways. This could explain the taste for corruption that has defined Jubilee.

In the meantime, the mistrust of the Opposition for IEBC is deepening. The Opposition believes it is up against the combined weight of a partisan and incompetent IEBC, the security agencies and a regime whose support is decaying but which appears determined to retain power at all costs. This mix makes Kenya a country waiting to explode in 2017.