Global data-mining company Cambridge Analytica employed all tricks including ‘dirty’ ones to help President Uhuru Kenyatta and DP William Ruto win the 2013 and 2017 elections.
Series of emails leaked by a former employee of the UK firm reveal how the company played the tricks to ensure Uhuru’s victory.
Cambridge Analytica was accused of designing propaganda and maligning messages against ODM leader Raila Odinga, Uhuru’s main competitor in both polls.
The firm managed the campaigns of Uhuru and Ruto in 2013 and 2017.
It branded and re-branded the party, drafted its manifesto, conducted research and designed messaging, including propaganda, which sold Jubilee to the minds and souls of many voters.
In one of the leaked emails, two staffers of the company–who were seeking a meeting with some Ethiopian politicians to manage their candidate’s campaigns in the run-up to the 2015 elections–converse about the quick and dirty tricks they employed in Kenya.
They said how they will employ similar tactics they used in Kenya to guarantee the Ethiopian politician victory.
“Anyway, I looked into what we did in Kenya (quick and dirty summary attached), and the good news is it seems like we basically did the entire campaign,” the email reads.
The emails were leaked by former employee Brittany Kaiser who served as the company’s Business and Development director for four years–between 2014 and 2018.
They revealed how the company managed Uhuru’s entire campaigns from ‘extremely comprehensive research' to designing T-shirts.
“So, we could definitely provide similar services in Ethiopia. SCL could undertake research into the public memory/impressions of the last Emperor, and identify elements that could then be incorporated into the brand of the prince’s political party–nostalgia can be very powerful,” it reads.
In the documents, Jubilee hired the company to conduct national surveys, organise the party, recruit and train staff and operationalise the party structure.
The documents describe Cambridge Analytica as a global leader in data-driven company with over 25 years of experience, supporting more than 100 campaigns across five continents.
It is credited with helping President Donald Trump to win the American presidential election and the Leave side to win in the Brexit referendum in the UK.
However, an expose by the Guardian recently claimed that CA, in conjunction with its sister company AggregateIQ in Vancouver, Canada, essentially won the Brexit vote by trawling Facebook and buying up commercial consumer data-sets to identify ‘persuadable’ voters whom it then bombarded with more than a billion social media posts and adverts.
In Kenya, the company was accused of running offensive campaign adverts against Raila on the internet with massive propaganda messages.
It was castigated for being behind a deeply divisive campaign that exploited ethnic tensions to manipulate voters.
Raila threatened to sue the firm while Nasa demanded investigations to establish the roles it played in the elections.
Last year, it emerged that Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica to harvest the data of up to 87 million people without their consent worldwide.
UK's Information Commissioner's Office fined facebook over Sh64 million for the scandal.
Cambridge Analytica has also worked on elections in Nigeria for former President Goodluck Jonathan, India, Czech Republic and Argentina.
Edited by R.Wamochie
