Today is the day the IEBC bosses have been preparing for psychologically and logistically for five years.
The stakes cannot be higher. The peace and tranquillity Kenyans have prayed for are in their hands.
How chairman Wafula Chebukati manages the hotly contested and frenetic campaign will save this nation or create conditions that could inspire violent convulsions that could make the mayhem of 2007 look like child’s play.
One of the recipes for the 2007 chaos, as the Kriegler report found, is the slow or inordinate delay in making information public. In this case results for the presidential race.
Chebukati and his commissioners must ensure the media is fed information.
This election comes at a time social media enjoys such perverse powers that the vacuum created by slow publication of results will be quickly filled by politically-motivated bloggers whose intention will not be to tell the truth. They will embellish the information in favour of the political parties of their masters.
The IEBC must not cede ground to the reckless keyboard buccaneers who will supplant the agency in the event information is delayed for all sorts of reasons.
The IEBC must keep information flowing in real time to avoid the tensions, suspicions and anxiety that lack of information engenders.
When information does not flow, rumour mills get into overdrive.
Quote of the Day: “I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes and dream!”
Tove Jansson
The Swedish-speaking Finnish author was born on August 9, 1914
