What really matters in the forthcoming Kenya elections
December 2002, Kenyans defeated a succession line-up offered by Kanu that would have continued the battered policies that had crippled our nation for four decades. About 10 years later, Kenyans go to an election in which the old team that was defeated in 2002 is applying fresh paint on its face and presenting itself as new.
As the regime that took over in 2002 exits, the team it defeated is asking Kenyans to trust it with power, based on reconditioned policies that have failed for 50 years. I trust Kenyans know that if they scratch the paint what will emerge is the same old team, complete with its old veterans of corruption and impunity giving directions from behind the curtains.
The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy comprises leaders who intend to keep Kenya marching forward after a decade of keeping the flames of change burning. Cord believes in social democracy. This is an ideology I have always confessed, not an experiment I am getting converted to. I have always believed there is something wrong with an economy where a minority at the top does well and gets everything while an overwhelming majority struggles to get by.
My partners, Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang’ula, share this view as do all the parties that have joined Cord. As Social Democrats, we believe in capitalism with a human face and that the economics and politics of “you are on your own” have not worked and will not work for us. Nobody knows the ideology of our competitors but I sense something familiar in our opponents. They want Kenyans to take the same path they have been on for 50 years. That path takes us where we are coming from. It is decorated with signposts that say each Kenyan is on his or her own.
The signposts on this path say every Kenyan can choose to fail or succeed; the State will not help anyone. Our opponents believe that if you cannot pay fees for your child, it is your own problem; if you cannot afford medicine, it not your country’s business, if you can’t put food on your table, it is because you are lazy.
We took this path immediately after Independence when some of our leaders declared hakuna cha bure. At the time, the Mau Mau were asking to be considered for some of the land the colonialists were leaving behind. They were told hakuna cha bure.
This mindset persists in our competitors.
I witnessed it first hand in the Cabinet three years ago when I proposed a social protection programme for the poor. My plan was rejected with the argument that it will encourage “dependency.” They were still shouting hakuna cha bure 50 years later. Despite the opposition, my office secured support of development partners and helped the Ministry of Gender to launch a cash transfer for the poor in Nairobi and Mombasa.
Now I don’t mean our opponents don’t mean well for Kenya. I believe they do. But some people just don’t get it however hard they try. It comes down to how and where one was brought up. I grew up in the hands of parents who insisted on honesty, hard work and opportunity for all. You could never cheat your way to riches in Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s home. That is actually the case in most Kenyan homes.
Even more importantly, Jaramogi drilled in us the idea that every Kenyan needs to be supported to realise full potential and enjoy the fruits of freedom. I was told I must be prepared to help every Kenyan who was down get back on their feet again. I was taught to fight for the good of the majority, not for the interests of a few. I was not brought up in the ideology of survival for the fittest and hakuna cha bure.
That is why I am promising programmes to assist poor Kenyans access food, universal health care, free education, and cash for the elderly, widows and orphans. That is why I promise to support all mothers in need to ensure their babies get enough nutrition. I grew up knowing that extending a helping hand is the obligation of every good citizen, not a favour dished out at election time. This is the thinking that I want to bring into government.
I know it cost my father his job when he stood up for those who went to the forest to fight for freedom only to find their land grabbed. I believe standing by this principle will earn me the support of the majority of Kenyans who witnessed the devastation of runaway greed and the ideology of hakuna cha bure.
Every aspect of change I have fought for has led to greater good. From the Constitution to the slum upgrading programme I signed with UN-HABITAT in February 2003 to give a facelift to slums. The road reserves I reclaimed about ten years ago have given us the first super highway in East and Central Africa. The by-passes and link roads I retraced and opened are easing traffic jams in Nairobi and other towns.
When I went to Japan two years ago, I agreed with Toyota on a plan to establish regional headquarters in Kenya. Toyota has now opened car assembly plants and facilities to train young Kenyans in Eldoret and other towns. When I met Price Charles in Norway three years ago, I asked him to help us restore Kenya’s glorious Lake Naivasha. Life has returned to Lake Naivasha today.
We have true believers in this cause in Cord. Runaway greed is not in our DNA. We want Kenyans to walk with us out of the past called yesterday, represented in Jubilee, into the future of tomorrow. We say there should be no looking back, no matter what, because there is nothing there but memories that bring sorrow, to paraphrase a popular lyric. We trust Kenyans will heed our call.
Mr Odinga is the Cord’s Presidential candidate
About the Author
Listen to Ngatia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNUjo2OwbLA
Uhuruto war-declaring message is very clear
No matter wat amolo odinga wil always b the president of kenya
Uhuru Must be stoped from buying Votes and destroying them
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000078022&story_title=Kenya-IEBC-admits-ID-card-buying-going-onb
cMurder, sexual abuse, drugs and extortion revealed in Kismayo
Kdf dealings with Chachol(Makaa business)and no jaurnalist allowed to enter and report black market dealings done by boys under Chief of the General staff Karangi and Gichangi guys
Shocking revelations of murder, sexual abuse of young Somali girls unarmed civilians being shot at, Kdf officers high on drugs, and routine kidnaps and extortion, torture ,floggings are exposing the true state of Kenya Defence security forces in Kismayo .
Kweli Kikuyus are very Smart (Cunning)(super-race ) might rule in Kenya for ever see here We are aware of some meetings organized by a lobby group supporting a political interest and is to be held at the House of Commons on Tuesday 26th March purporting that they are representing the interest of the Diaspora community in UK. Although we church leaders do not deter individuals group from exercising their democratic rights; we however disassociate ourselves from the ‘groups’ interest and state that their views are not the views of the entire diaspora community in UK. We therefore request their views to be taken as PART OF THE WHOLE AND NOT WHOLE OF THE PART. This time round we plead for every peace loving Kenyan to preach peace and unity and allow Kenyans who are in Kenya to vote peacefully and independently without coercion or pressure from whatever source. This is the feeling of all leaders represented in our Friday prayer meeting in London. – From Kenyan Pastors and church Leaders in diaspora – United Kingdom.
We are aware of some meetings organized by a lobby group supporting a political interest and is to be held at the House of Commons on Tuesday 26th March purporting that they are representing the interest of the Diaspora community in UK. Although we church leaders do not deter individuals group from exercising their democratic rights; we however disassociate ourselves from the ‘groups’ interest and state that their views are not the views of the entire diaspora community in UK. We therefore request their views to be taken as PART OF THE WHOLE AND NOT WHOLE OF THE PART. This time round we plead for every peace loving Kenyan to preach peace and unity and allow Kenyans who are in Kenya to vote peacefully and independently without coercion or pressure from whatever source. This is the feeling of all leaders represented in our Friday prayer meeting in London. – From Kenyan Pastors and church Leaders in diaspora – United Kingdom.
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London Iko Maneno Uhururto /supporters vs Wenye nchi (kikuyus=)astors, church elders and diaspora believers from all over UK gathered for an all night prayer vigil at Revival House, London on Friday 22nd February, 2013. This was a historic meeting which was attended by more than 45 pastors and leaders in the diaspora community who represented one united Kenya. This was a time of prayer for Kenya. We all cried to God for peaceful elections and post elections. We stood together united by God as one Kenya. The gathering agreed that we are not part of any other meeting being organized by other groups. We are standing as non partisan and wait on God to give us the right leader who is God fearing. This was a one off meeting without any affiliation to any other political gathering organized here in the UK.
Kenyans register in big numbers for the All Party Parliamentary Party Group APPG.
Kenyans, friends Kenya, business community and officials from Foreign and Commonwealth office have registered for the Kenya event at the House of Commons confirmed for Tuesday 26th February 2013 at 11:30am. Asked if the Kenya High Commissioner HE Ephram Ngari will attend the event, the organisers said, ‘we have sent a person who is very close to him, sent emails to his office. We do not have any confirmation as yet to his attendance but we are a full house.’ The event is the first of its kind, organised by Kenyans in the UK, hosted by Bill Cash MP – APPG. It is the first time that Kenyans in Diaspora have shown their willingness to engage Westminster politicians on elections in Kenya under the new constitution. Kenyans will be electing their leaders in presidential, gubernatorial, senatorial, parliamentary among other seat on 4th of March 2013.
Fearing CORD winning they started burning Kenya revenue GoDowns where Ivory etc is stored>Hii Ni Kionjo Mambo Bondi!
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000078091&story_title=Property-lost-in-KRA-warehouse-fire
It is Nonsense for the IEBC telling kenyans that there is no way to Rigg or to steal elections thats Big nonsense > Look at the characters (unreliable) guys very suspecious) Corrupt telling is us Lies: What we know any election world over can be rigged >Tale George W Bush in Miami (Shards) Brother Bush helping to rigg his brother Bush>It’s impossible to rig Kenya poll – IEBC
by LORDRICK MAYABI on February 25, 2013
IEBC chairman Issack Hassan says the systems put in place by the electoral body cannot allow any manipulation of the election in any way/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 25 – The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has asserted that it will be ‘technically impossible’ to rig Monday’s general election.
IEBC chairman Issack Hassan says the systems put in place by the electoral body cannot allow any manipulation of the election in any way.
Presiding Officers will be required to account for each of the ballot papers within the serial numbers of those issued to their station.
“It is not technically possible and feasible to rig the election because we have put systems to ensure that the will of the people will not be subverted,” he said explaining that the result figures will have to tally the number of ballot papers issued, as well as the electronic count of registered voters who check in using the biometric data reader.
Hassan who spoke during a meeting with members of the African Union observer mission at his Anniversary Towers office, insisted that the commission had not received as many official complaints as the rhetoric of accusations being traded between political rivals at rallies and in the media.
There have been counter-accusations by politicians from both the Jubilee and CORD alliances on an alleged plan to rig the much-awaited election.
Hassan also emphasised that it is unlikely that voting will extend to the second day despite concerns over the amount of time it takes each voter to cast the six ballots.
“Majority of our polling stations have an average of between 200 and 450 voters. It’s only about 10,000 stations that have a higher average, so for majority of the stations even when voters are taking eight minutes voting should close at 5pm,” added Hassan saying that those on the queue at 5pm when voting is expected to close will not be turned away.
The IEBC chairman has also called on those with evidence on the buying of identity cards to present the evidence to the commission for immediate action.
Former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano who leads the AU observer mission says that they are confident that elections will be conducted well.
Chissano said that they are satisfied with the level of reforms and preparations so far exhibited by the IEBC following the lessons learnt from the 2007 election.
“It is possible to convert a bad thing to a good one and this is the case where the lessons of the past have been learnt. Many countries will come and learn from Kenya on how they hold their elections,” the former president averred although cautioning all stakeholders in the process to commit to peace.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 25 – The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has asserted that it will be ‘technically impossible’ to rig Monday’s general election.
IEBC chairman Issack Hassan says the systems put in place by the electoral body cannot allow any manipulation of the election in any way.
Presiding Officers will be required to account for each of the ballot papers within the serial numbers of those issued to their station.
“It is not technically possible and feasible to rig the election because we have put systems to ensure that the will of the people will not be subverted,” he said explaining that the result figures will have to tally the number of ballot papers issued, as well as the electronic count of registered voters who check in using the biometric data reader.
Hassan who spoke during a meeting with members of the African Union observer mission at his Anniversary Towers office, insisted that the commission had not received as many official complaints as the rhetoric of accusations being traded between political rivals at rallies and in the media.
There have been counter-accusations by politicians from both the Jubilee and CORD alliances on an alleged plan to rig the much-awaited election.
Hassan also emphasised that it is unlikely that voting will extend to the second day despite concerns over the amount of time it takes each voter to cast the six ballots.
“Majority of our polling stations have an average of between 200 and 450 voters. It’s only about 10,000 stations that have a higher average, so for majority of the stations even when voters are taking eight minutes voting should close at 5pm,” added Hassan saying that those on the queue at 5pm when voting is expected to close will not be turned away.
The IEBC chairman has also called on those with evidence on the buying of identity cards to present the evidence to the commission for immediate action.
Former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano who leads the AU observer mission says that they are confident that elections will be conducted well.
Chissano said that they are satisfied with the level of reforms and preparations so far exhibited by the IEBC following the lessons learnt from the 2007 election.
“It is possible to convert a bad thing to a good one and this is the case where the lessons of the past have been learnt. Many countries will come and learn from Kenya on how they hold their elections,” the former president averred although cautioning all stakeholders in the process to commit to peace.
There was a time Masaai-tribe Owned Land from Ngong-hills (Nairobi) to Loitoktok (Namanga) but today the Whole land is occupied by( Ole-Guguyus)hardly Masaai-cows has grazing area without intruding kikuyuland planted with Maize Potatoes beans and pumpkins.
Masai tribe is in dire need of a spokesman and not lackeys.
February 22, 2013, 8:30 am11 Comments
Running on Amnesia
By MICHELA WRONG
NAIROBI — I was negotiating one of Nairobi’s terrifying traffic circles — a maneuver that requires jumping over a lattice of open sewers while playing chicken with a line of trucks snorting their way toward Uganda and Congo — when I was confronted with a vision to chill the heart and drop the jaw.
Twenty young Kenyan volunteers in T-shirts and caps printed with the candidate’s face were jiving and chanting on the back of a campaign truck as it trundled toward the Sarit Center shopping mall in Westlands: “Vote for Brother Paul!”
It was my first day back in the city that was once my home, and I’d just caught a glimpse of what must surely be the overriding characteristic of this East African country’s forthcoming general elections: shamelessness.
For Brother Paul, as he is known since he found God, was once plain Kamlesh Pattni, the smirking, mustachioed brains behind Goldenberg, the biggest financial scandal in Kenyan history. The scam, in which top officials looted public coffers by claiming compensation for phantom gold exports, sent the economy into a nose dive that cost Kenya at least 10 percent of G.D.P. in the 1990s. Yet Pattni clearly sees no reason why that awkward fact should bar him from office.
Maybe he’s not so crazy. Because forgetting past financial scandals is only one form of amnesia a dazed public is being asked to demonstrate come March 4. The presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, and his running mate William Ruto, a Kalenjin, are asking millions to effectively lobotomize themselves as they enter the voting booths, blanking out everything they saw five years ago.
The Kikuyu are the largest and most economically successful tribe; the Kalenjin, a looser ethnic grouping, come second in size. Kenya’s last three presidents have all been either Kikuyu or Kalenjin.
After the 2007 election Kikuyu and Kalenjin militias were given machetes, spears and cash payments, trucked to where they could do most damage and let loose on rival ethnic communities. Houses and churches were burned; businesses were looted. Refugees went on exoduses, only to find their way often cut off by flaming roadblocks. Many analysts believe that the official estimate of more than 1,000 deaths is a laughable underestimation.
Now, thanks to an alliance between Kenyatta and Ruto, who both face trial before the International Criminal Court for allegedly organizing the violence, attackers and victims are being asked to become buddies. Anything to keep Prime Minister Raila Odinga, a Luo who almost certainly should have won the 2007 election, from becoming president. Kenya has a tradition of strained tribal coalitions, but few have been more grotesque, or demanded more torturous mental acrobatics of scarred constituencies, than this.
Odinga, who has pulled together his own alliance, is also hoping for some serious short-term memory loss from his supporters. They will need to forget that he was lucky — enemies say miraculously so — to escape an I.C.C. indictment for what Luo lieutenants perpetrated in Kenya’s warring slums in 2007 and 2008. They will also need to skim over the corruption scandals that have led back to the prime minister’s office and the deep nepotism that surfaced during party primaries in Odinga’s region.
Will the candidates succeed in convincing the electorate to swallow such repugnant medicine? God knows they have stinted neither funds nor energy in their attempts to make the various unlikely deals sound pragmatic, even sensible. Across Kenya, walls, fences and kiosks are plastered with campaign posters. Toyota pickups covered in stickers perform semi-permanent loops through slums, horns blaring.
There is one interest group, at least, that has no problem behaving as though the past were another country: the international business community.
Since the most violent elections in Kenyan history, consultants advising companies keen to invest in Africa in general and Kenya in particular have been telephoning me, asking for my views on political risk. The last call came two days before I flew in. “This isn’t a great time for predictions,” I said. “Literally anything could happen. It’s a very tight race.” The consultant was apologetic. “I don’t think our clients realized there was an election in Kenya this month.”
That level of ignorance is unusual, but my answer, in any case, is always the same. Yes, Kenya is East Africa’s most vibrant economy, a strategic gateway to the mineral resources of the Great Lakes region and — potentially — the oil riches of South Sudan. It has an aspirational middle class, a ballooning pool of potential workers and a relentless entrepreneurial spirit.
But a generation of cynical, short-termist politicians has turned ethnicity into a poisonous national obsession, Nairobi’s slums are the most squalid in Africa, and the vision required to defuse the frustrations of the young population trapped in them is noticeable by its absence.
Despite such warnings, overseas funding pours in. Taking the long view, private investors are transforming Nairobi’s skyscape, while holes in the city’s moth-eaten colonial infrastructure yawn ever wider. Above the shattered pavements, giant potholes and broken streetlights, gleaming 20-floor towers now rear.
I walk past them and wonder if those who commissioned their wraparound glass fronts, so vulnerable to looters’ rocks, were more far-sighted than a headline-obsessed writer. Or perhaps, it suddenly occurs to me, it’s just shatterproof glass.
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Michela Wrong has covered Africa for nearly two decades, reporting for Reuters, the BBC and The Financial Times. She is the author of “It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower.”
http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/kenya-election-campaign-run-on-amnesia/?hp
A big boost for Raila
http://www.kenyan-post.com/2013/02/elect-uhuru-kenyatta-at-your-own-peril.html
Jomo Kenyatta, the charismatic son of Kikuyu farmers educated at the London School of Economics, demanded a political voice for Africans. He would go to prison for leading the Mau Mau uprising which began in 1952. Thousands were killed on both sides. In 1957, the first native Africans were elected. Rather than placate nationalist fervour, it fuelled it, and in 1963 Kenyatta’s Kenyan African National Union formed the first government. He proclaimed the Republic of Kenya a year later.
Tom
Raila Amollo Oginga the charismatic son of Jaramogi Ondinga Oginga who fought for the liberation of Kenya. Rejected to become Kenyas President as long as Jomo Kenyatta was in British colonial jails(detention)as if that was not enough Jomo Kenyatta detained Jaramogi
Raila Amollo Oginga was detained by Moi regime ,suffered many years in detention where he was tortured by both Kikuyu women and men interogators at Nyayo torture chambers stripped naked . these brutal kikuyu CID women and men humiliated Raila by pulling his testicals . The whole saga is written in Human rights watch the big red book!etc
Raila has been in struggle since he left School. he won 205 Wako-Kibaki -Gema Mongrel constitution .
Raila won 207 General election (huge)only for GEMA Kikuyu Ruling-class political gangsters
robbed Oginga Jaramogis son his birth-right. by swearing A Kikuyu thug(mafia)orchestrated by Muthaiga Golf Club (Axis of Evil)
Today the same Gema (cartel)is planning to rigg elections just for them to retain The Status Quo.
Wataweza Kweli.?
Perhaps not this time.
ICC suspect Sang endorses Raila
Tuesday, February 26 2013
International Criminal Court suspect and former radio journalist Joshua arap Sang has endorsed Cord’s presidential candidate Raila Odinga ahead of the general elections next Monday.
Mr Sang, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s office, dismissed the Jubilee coalition between Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto as incapable of bringing peace between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin who have fought during elections since 1992.
The endorsement marks a breakaway between Mr Sang and his fellow suspects at the International Criminal Court Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. The three face various counts of crimes against humanity committed at the height of the 2007 – 2008 post-election violence.
In a recorded message to air on radio, Mr Sang says that it is only a president who is not a Kalenjin or a Kikuyu who can bring peace between the two communities.
Mr Sang says he recorded the message because of “heavy feelings in my heart.”.
In his message, Mr Sang also dismisses as lies the perception in Rift Valley that it was Mr Odinga who sent him to The Hague. He claims that senior government officials who were in office before the formation of the coalition had coached witnesses to testify against him and Mr Ruto in the case at the ICC.
“We are away in a foreign land with my brother because of allegations made against us. The truth must be told. In my opinion, the people who masterminded and planned to have me and my brother taken to The Hague did not include Raila Odinga,” Mr Sang says in the recorded message.
Mr Sang appeals to the Kalenjin community not to trust the power sharing deal in the Jubilee coalition, saying such agreements have twice been disowned after elections.
He cites the MOU signed between Mr Odinga and Mr Kibaki in 2002 and the 2007 power sharing deal that brought the Grand Coalition Government into force as instances of broken promises that should make residents of the Rift Valley wary of the deal between Mr Ruto and Mr Uhuru.
“Today, some of our people want us to enter into an MOU again through Jubilee. They never respected the MOU signed in 2002 and the power sharing deal agreed on in 2007. Why should we expect that the one our community has signed in Jubilee will be respected,” Mr Sang says in a recorded message set to air on radio.
According to Mr Sang, the doubts whether the pact between Mr Ruto and Mr Uhuru will fare any better.
He says that although President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga were supposed to share power on a 50-50 basis, it never really happened and only one side of the coalition ran the country.
http://elections.nation.co.ke/news/ICC-suspect-Sang-endorses-Raila/-/1631868/1705024/-/th0rt1/-/index.html