Tonny Gachoka’s “Bring It On” Contraption a Sign of Looming TNA-URP Political Divorce
Every time you see TNA’s rabid dog Moses Kuria or spanner boy Tonny Gachoka open their foul mouths apparently ”to articulate their opinions”, get it right – they are either vomiting the opinions of Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta or simply defecating the official position of State House on a sensitive or controversial issue.
Finally, Gachoka has delivered the critical message (to William Ruto and his URP subordinates) that has only been heard in whispers before – that TNA is done with URP and that William Ruto can as well go to hell.
In a surprise national broadcast on KTN where he was hosted by Jeff Koinange, Uhuru’s cousin, Gachoka unambiguously told Ruto and his URP MPs that they were holding Uhuru Kenyatta hostage and that as far as the Kenyatta camp was concerned, “enough is enough”.
Gachoka’s unexpected outburst came in the wake of an equally mesmerizing babble a few weeks ago by Moses Kuria to the effect that he, Kuria, working in cahoots with other accomplices, fixed William Ruto at the ICC.
The key difference between Kuria’s babble and Gachoka’s outburst is that while Kuria was allegedly trying to fix the purported uncertainty that surrounded the identity of the real “Ruto fixers” at the ICC, Gachoka’s perplexing intervention was designed to deliver the message that the political alliance between TNA and URP is as dead as a dodo. What is more?
Gachoka’s tacit message was delivered using tit-bits borrowed from Kuria’s “Ruto fixing” script. In no uncertain terms, and as if Gachoka’s intervention was a calculated extension of Kuria’s rant, Gachoka told Ruto and his URP bootlickers to stop the balderdash that Uhuru fixed Ruto at the ICC. Gachoka said that Ruto should emulate Uhuru Kenyatta by clearing his own name like Uhuru Kenyatta who did so without blaming anybody for his personal woes.
“Uhuru cleared his name in the ICC and DP Ruto should do that as well,” Gachoka thundered as Jeff egged him to continue “setting the bench on fire”. In his name-clearing strategy, Uhuru exploited the State machine to systematically intimidate, bribe or kill witnesses, a strategy that Ruto has been unable to duplicate because Uhuru’s clowns at State House have refused him access to relevant State resources.
A far-fetched interpretation of Gachoka’s unprovoked advice to Ruto on name-clearing at ICC could not have been relevant had Gachoka not crossed the red line. While linking his advice to Ruto to carry his own ICC cross, Gachoka went out of his way to send a strong warning, not just to Ruto, but to the entire Kalenjin community who voted for Uhuru Kenyatta to a man.
In no uncertain terms, Gachoka said that “If Kalenjins think they gonna blackmail Uhuru with this fixing shenanigans, then we will tell them to bring it on”. The “we” was a reference to Mount Kenya Mafia cartel which runs State House, controls government policy and dictates the national looting agenda. In retrospect, it is like Gachoka was sent by the Mafia to ensure that he crossed the Rubicon from the point of view of the rapidly collapsing TNA-URP relations.
An additional message Gachoka delivered was that he had established a lobby group baptized “Bring It On” whose principle agenda is “to campaign and bring ordinary people who are not in politics… to bring out the achievements that this government has been able to achieve under the leadership of the President Uhuru Kenyatta so that people can be able to look at rhetoric and the evidence… how much development has been done in terms of improving the livelihoods of Kenyans”, Gachoka told Koinange.
Two developments that prompted Gachoka’s outbursts
To underline the seriousness of the lobby group, Gachoka brought along a T-shirt with the “Bring It On” slogan. What was telling was the red colour of the T-shirt, the official colour of TNA, Uhuru Kenyatta’s party.
The timing of Gachoka’s message was not accidental neither could the move be viewed as a cheap publicity stunt by Gachoka through exploitation of the Ruto fixing debate. This is because Gachoka surfaced after two significant developments – intense propaganda campaign by ODM that Uhuru Kenyatta fixed Ruto at the ICC and leaks from State House that Ruto had blocked an imminent Cabinet reshuffle because the DP was not happy with certain names in the reshuffle list.
After ODM released a ten-point Statement outlining the pathogenesis of Ruto’s fixing at the ICC by Uhuru Kenyatta’s allies, State House went into panic mode because the points ODM raised appeared incontrovertible. To demonstrate the “panic
“Sky Team’s” Whatsapp leak
level” within the Uhuru camp following the explosion of ODM’s ten-point missile, a leaked Whatsapp message from the “Sky Team” (which dabbles as Jubilee’s “Kitchen Cabinet” in Parliament) captured the tension. Duale, Jubilee’s North-Eastern hawk and member of “Sky Team”, was quoted as saying that “I am still in nightmares over the ten points”. When spanner boy Gachoka rushed on TV with his freshly cobbled “Bring It On” contraption, he was on a mission to address a more serious reality about Ruto and URP.
For the first time since Jubilee was assembled and rigged to power, Ruto was flexing his muscles as an equal stake-holder in the fragile Coalition. Apparently, he had blocked the appointment of several TNA personalities/allies to the cabinet including: Julius Karangi, former Chief of General Staff, Charles Nyachae, Chairman of the Committee on the Implementation of the Constitution, Gideon Mung’aro, Malindi MP among other changes.
Why Kalenjin may not follow Ruto into Jubilee again
The rejections came hot on the heels of haphazard URP statements that the party was ready to quit Jubilee if TNA failed to help free Ruto from his ICC quagmire. Calls by URP politicians that the party quit Jubilee is what propelled Mount Kenya Mafia cartel into a hurried formation of “Bring it On” before the “lobby group” was handed over to Gachoka to use in his mission to dare URP to quit the Coalition.
With Gachoka’s uncanny theatrics at the Jeff Koinange show, TNA seem to have understood that the Kalenjin support has waned after the Kalenjin ruling class was short-changed on the 50-50 power sharing deal reached ahead of the rigged 2013 elections.
This explains why TNA is seeking to appoint Charles Nyachae to the Cabinet (to woo the Kisii), Gideon Mung’aro (Coast) and why the baby faced Eugene Wamalwa was also appointed to the Cabinet (to woo the Luhyas). In their bid to seek an alternative to Ruto last week, TNA tried to elevate Gideon Moi to the level of a “Statesman” through a trip for a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda although Gideon has done nothing at the national level to warrant recognition as a Statesman.
What TNA strategists do not understand is that the tactic of elevating specific sycophants from different ethnic groups to top positions in government as a means of looking for votes no longer works in Kenya after Moi used it recklessly during the one party dictatorship. In 2002, Moi appointed Musalia Mudavadi, a Luhya, as Vice President but this did not win him Luhya votes and his candidate, Uhuru Kenyatta lost the election.
Kalenjins followed William Ruto into Jubilee, not because they loved the Kikuyu but because they sympathized with Ruto who was stuck with his ICC case and whom they saw as a sacrificial lamb following the 2007 ethnic cleansing in the Rift Valley.
The Kalenjin followed Ruto into Jubilee because they benefited from this cleansing by killing the Kikuyu, chasing them from the Rift Valley and confiscating Kikuyu land which has never been returned to date. By following Ruto into Jubilee, the Kalenjin believed that the government would help Ruto defeat the ICC agenda while sharing power (on a 50-50 basis) with the Kalenjin ruling class, expectations which have evaporated as hopes are tied on prayers.
As for now, URP has been put on notice to quit Jubilee. However, “the politics of the stomach” will not allow URP to quit because such a move will cause the government to collapse at a time when URP politicians still have more than one year to eat.
As TNA continues to betray URP on almost every issue, the most possible scenario is that URP will continue to be in government while looking for alternative political alliances. Here, URP has very little political options because Nyanza, Western, Coast and Eastern provinces (which form the bulk of the voting block) are either gravitating towards CORD or are firmly in the Coalition.
TNA is in a more difficult situation because if it loses URP, it is impossible to envision how the party will find a political ally that might help it win elections in 2017 after the bigger ethnic groups have been scooped by CORD. Under the circumstances, the only way through which TNA can return to power with Uhuru Kenyatta as President is through election rigging.
Okoth Osewe
Secretary General
Kenya Red Alliance (KRA)
Kenya Stockholm Blog 
A country is doomed when its ‘best’ leaders are Uhuru, Raila and Mudavadi
Ted Malanda19th October 201512
In 2013, we missed the joke of the year when the goddess of laughter announced that Kenya’s leading presidential candidates were Raila Odinga, Uhuru Kenyatta and Musalia Mudavadi.
In one of Africa’s greatest nations, land of amazing wildlife and 40 million people, home of Waiyaki wa Hinga, Koitalel Arap Samoei, Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi, Mekatilili Wa Menza, Lwanda Magere and Mukite son of Nameme, the best we had were Raila, Uhuru and Musalia. Good Lord!
Can you recall something philosophical and profound that those three said last month? Last year? Ever? When you listen to them, does their intellect, depth and grasp of issues hit you smack in the face? Thought so.
No wonder they were whitewashed during a presidential debate by a joker called Mohammed Abduba Diba, a man who would have great difficulty convincing a village baraza in Wajir to allow him to cough. We should have laughed, but we didn’t. Big mistake.
When a journeyman steals the show in a debate against the country’s foremost leaders – the son of an iconic freedom fighter and president, the son of a vice president and towering opposition leader, and the son of a former powerful Cabinet minister – it can only mean one thing: Iko shida. We have a crippling shortage of political talent.
Let us begin with MaDVD. Everyone agrees Mudavadi is a nice person. But the nasty thing about life is that nice people belong in a kindergarten, not State House. Countries are transformed by ruthlessly efficient and determined people. Rwanda’s Paul Kagame is not nice. Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi was not a nice person. Transforming a country, especially a kumbafu one like ours, requires a bad ass guy who kicks butt like kicking butt is running out of fashion. You know what I mean?
That, by the way, is a weakness Mudavadi shares with Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. In 2013, half of the country was dying to undress for them. The two were posing in elegant suits on billboards and claiming they would transform Kenya (it must have sounded very funny to them!) But that they were posing with Charity Ngilu, Najib Balala and Joseph Nyaga in that billboard should have sent sirens screaming nyuuuwii! nyuuuwii! in our heads. When you are going to transform a dead country, you carry a stick, an axe, a machete and a hoe. When you walk in carrying Balala, Ngilu and Nyaga on your back, you are a joker.
Anyhow, we bought it hook, line and sinker. We are so reckless that we actually elected two guys who stood the risk of getting locked up in a foreign jail by the International Criminal Court. Such is our recklessness that had those two been locked up at The Hague, we would have been stuck with Justin Muturi. Yes, that one.
That Uhuru and Ruto looked across Kenya and decided Muturi was the best person to be speaker of the national assembly isn’t surprising. I mean, they saw a bright spark, shining star, in Joseph Ole Lenku and Kazungu Kambi, too!
Remember Ruto was in something called Youth for Kanu. When the country was falling apart, and everyone was crying for change, Ruto was handing out ‘fake’ Sh500 notes to villagers and cooking inflation to buy votes. Now he was staring us in the face, saying he wanted to transform Kenya and we believed him.
Meanwhile, Uhuru’s political career was a short as a miniskirt. More scaring is that there was nothing particularly inspiring about his ministerial career, which was even shorter than a miniskirt. Yet we believed he was this great leader who was going to transform Kenya.
We forgot that as Kanu boss, he didn’t dare call a delegates meeting because even those incompetent Kanu yajenga nchi crooks were so pissed off with him they wanted to fire him. You know why? He abdicated his duty as leader of the official opposition and refused to run for office in 2008, instead throwing his lot with Kibaki, the very man he was meant to oppose. Like Kizza Besigye of Uganda supporting Museveni. Who does that?
In fact, when the late John Michuki popped up with the idea that Uhuru should run for office, people thought he was comically juggling a piece of liver. Uhuru?
Well, we missed that joke and now we are sitting here gnashing our teeth and screaming about El Nino sanitary pads worth Sh6,000 and a government that is so broke that Kenya Power can stroll in whistling and disconnect power at the National Assembly.
Not that Raila would have been any better. As Prime Minister and co-principal of the coalition government, he had been thoroughly outmaneuvered by the sickly Mwai Kibaki, the aloof politician christened “General Kiguoya” (coward) by his own people.
It is Raila who came up with that pea brained idea to sell unga at one price for the rich and another for the poor. All we got for that brainwave was a smelly maize scam (and you know the scum who chewed that maize, don’t you?). But we kept shouting, “Baba! Baba!”
We hailed him as a reformist and democrat despite him leading shambolic political outfits where party elections are a cocktail of nepotism, mindless violence and outright robbery.
A Legio Maria adherent, he was baptised by the ‘Mighty Prophet of The Lord David Owour’, stepped into the Kayas of the coastal people, and crept into the shrine of Elijah Masinde’s Dini ya Musambwa. He had eaten iftar with Muslims while dressed in kanzus and even laid claim to being a direct descendant of Nabongo Mumia of the Wanga people. But instead of asking ourselves, “Just who is this man who wants to be everything?” we kept screaming, “Baba! Baba!”
We ignored the fact Baba had a singular knack for shedding talent and surrounding himself with rude, noisy clowns, that WikiLeaks had quoted his own lieutenants saying he has poor managerial skills, and that he just didn’t seem able to keep friends, the reason he kept losing elections (or rigged out depending on whom you listen to).
When Kalonzo was leaving in 2007, his sycophants said, “Let him go. He is inconsequential”. Kalonzo left with 800,000 votes and Raila lost the election. Now Mudavadi was leaving and the same clowns were shouting, “Let Mudavadi go. He is inconsequential!” Mudavadi left with 450,000 votes and you know what happened.
But like a bunch of fools, we kept screaming “Baba! Baba!” believing he could transform Kenya. Transform Kenya? The guy couldn’t even transform his own political party!
The hilarity of it all is that he told us the election was about reformists (him) and non-reformists yet his co-principals were Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetangula. And the bullshit of it all didn’t bother us.
When Miguna Miguna tried to convince us to ask certain questions of the man who were dying to elect, we chased Miguna like a mongoose. Ask Baba questions? Were you mad, Miguna Miguna?
Miguna was not mad. It is us who were mad. So we voted for Kamwana. We voted for Baba. And we voted for MaDVD. What choice did we have?Now we are broke. In three years, we can’t point at one thing and say, “this is what we have accomplished”. Tribes are dying to fling stones, bows and arrows at each other. The nation is bleeding. And what our leaders are doing? Figuring out who fixed Ruto.
The funniest thing about it is that the 2017 general elections are months away and guess who we are struck with? Uhuru, Raila and Mudavadi!
As a Nigerian businessman ,having lived in Kenya for over a decade now Hon.Moses Kuria and mr Gachoka are known as mungiki leaders and Presidents attack dogs. They are feared hence no policeman regardless whichever rank in force can dare touch these two kikuyus.
It damn suspicious of the truth
The adage “there is no honor among thieves” best depicts the looming fallout in the unholy political alliance between Uhuru Kenyatta’s Kikuyu-dominated The National Party (TNA), and William Ruto’s Kalenjin-dominated United Republic Party (URP). Earlier rumors of Ruto having been bought by Uhuru for over Ksh1 billion to bring the Kalenjin vote to support his presidential bid in 2013, could explain Ruto’s voiceless position in the ruling Jubilee coalition.
Uhuru and Ruto promised Kenyans a transformative leadership when they took over the presidency in early 2013. However, what many Kenyans see today is a broke country with a debt burden surpassing Ksh2 trillion, and very little economic development. There is a lot of corruption which they have not been able to tame, not to mention the high expenditure in the presidency. Uhuru is always traveling out of the country not necessarily for the benefit of the taxpayers whom they have exhausted with their opulent lifestyles. Nobody talks about Ruto’s private case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) which is being paid for fully, using public funds. Uhuru and Ruto have no ethics and show no empathy for the poor Kenyans who have employed them. Ruto nowadays carries baskets full of cash (at least one KES million) to public fundraisings in the name of developing schools and churches, etc. When Kibaki took over, State officers were banned from fundraisings since they had been a major source of looting government money during Dictator Moi’s leadership. Where is Ruto getting Ksh1 million to offer two to three times a month?
Waiguru’s National Youth Service (NYS) cleanup projects are failing because they were politically-instigated to fight Raila Odinga. This is how short-sighted the Jubilee government is. NYS had no had sustainability strategies beyond Waiguru’s shovel and spade PR in the name of “Raila did nothing in Kibera”. Waiguru reminds me of current Senator Kiraitu Murungi who as Cabinet minister under Mwai Kibaki, told former Dictator Moi to go and herd goats at his farm, while they would be showing him how to govern Kenya. Those were sweet words before the major scandal of Anglo-leasing which was never resolved. How could Waiguru’s ministry afford to pay the youth Ksh164 million per week? The best way would have been to train them to develop entrepreneurship capacities in order to be self-employed. We await to see what will happen with the savings they deducted from the youth who participated in the NYS projects.
William Ruto knows he is history since TNA has spelt it clearly through motor-mouth Moses Kuria that he was among those who took him to the ICC. Gachoka cemented it at Jeff Koinange’s KTN talk show, as articulated in the above article. Moreover, Ruto’s lawyer had mentioned it in court last year that some Mt. Kenya State officers who currently work for Uhuru Kenyatta had procured false witnesses to testify against him. Ruto seems helpless having been allegedly bought by Uhuru to bring the Kalenjin vote, and can only talk about Raila in his dreams and in public. He cannot criticize the TNA side of government. Equally, Senators Murkomen and Professor Kithiki Kindure, now-turned-Jubilee sycophant, cannot survive at the stupid prayer rallies without mentioning Raila’s name. In Kenya, academics who become politicians are the worst, since they stoop so low and end up losing their integrity while working in corrupt governments such as the Jubilee. Both are trained lawyers who should know the futility of parading to pray for a case which is already in court. Further, the ICC has warned that politicians should desist from insulting them.
William Ruto is a caged man who is being shown by the ruthless Mount Kenya Mafia that he is dispensable since they have stolen enough money to buy another Kalenjin politician to give Uhuru their vote in 2017. The Kikuyus have dared Ruto to “Bring it On” if he is man enough.
Habari Jaduong,
Happy days ,free for all,chckens have come to roost.If anyone has an inlkling of puppetry,then one would know Tony Gachoks.If one had simple knowledge of the the coffee mafia,then one would know Tony Gachoks,.
And last but not least if one knew Malindi DIshes , Then you would sing Tony Gachocks ,apart from EASTLIEGH,tenants robbed and brutalzed ,then why complain when he is simply making hay while the sun shines and feeding off the monster.;
Ask Mweni .
EAN WUOD LUO
Election Rigging and How to Fight It
Daniel Calingaert
From: Journal of Democracy
Volume 17, Number 3, July 2006
pp. 138-151 | 10.1353/jod.2006.0043
In some countries, the deceased seem to cast ballots from the grave. Children too are on the electoral rolls. Ballot boxes disappear into thin air. Candidates are arrested, poisoned, even murdered. Although elections are now held in most countries around the globe, in many cases they are anything but free and fair. Up to sixty regimes in the world today can be classified as “electoral authoritarian”: They restrict the exercise of democratic freedoms, yet allow periodic multiparty elections in an attempt to bolster their domestic and international legitimacy. The rulers of these regimes are unwilling to risk losing elections, however, and so they manipulate elections to ensure that they remain in power. Electoral authoritarian regimes are the most common political system in Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and North Africa and the Middle East.1
The electoral fraud and manipulation employed by these regimes take a variety of forms. They are aimed at every step of the electoral process, ranging from altered voter-registration lists, to disrupted campaigns, to rigged vote tabulations. Some are brazen, while others are subtle. In recent years, authoritarian regimes have become increasingly adept at keeping up the appearance of meeting democratic norms while subverting the integrity of the electoral process.
The growing sophistication of electoral fraud and manipulation has been matched by improvements in the skills and methods of election observers. Domestic and international monitoring organizations have been adopting a more comprehensive approach to election observation. They assess a country’s election laws and regulations, which may tilt the playing field in the regime’s favor, and they monitor the electoral process from start to finish. Even when their access is restricted, they are often able to detect and to document electoral malpractice. Election observers’ judgments carry significant weight, especially since many countries have repeatedly made international commitments to hold free and fair elections and to accept election observation.2
Authoritarian regimes often succeed in retaining power, even when their resort to electoral fraud and manipulation is exposed, by relying on state resources and the use of force. Nonetheless, exposing fraud and manipulation can help to erode the legitimacy that such regimes seek to gain through elections. In a few cases, authoritarian regimes were ultimately brought down by their citizens’ indignation over acts of electoral fraud that were documented by observers. The exposure of electoral manipulation helped to oust authoritarian rulers in Serbia in 2000, in Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” of 2003, in Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” of 2004, and in Kyrgyzstan’s “Tulip Revolution” of 2005.
Knowing how authoritarian regimes have manipulated past elections can help both their citizens and international actors to watch for and deter similar abuses in future elections. With this goal in mind, I assess common methods used to cheat at four different stages of the electoral process: voter registration, electoral campaigning, election-day procedures, and the final vote count and tabulation.
Voter Registration
Voter registration determines who is able to cast a ballot and who is not; it is therefore fundamental to the integrity of elections. Election observers have found the names of the dead and of children on voter-registration lists. Such inflated voter rolls may result from direct manipulation or from simple neglect, but in either case they increase the risk that fraudulent ballots will be cast. Voters are sometimes registered twice, allowing the voter who was double-entered to collude with polling-station officials and cast multiple ballots. In some cases, ineligible and even nonexistent “phantom” voters are on voter-registration lists, and certain eligible voters-often those likely to support the opposition-are obstructed from registering to vote or are removed from the rolls altogether. Observers have documented the practice of such tactics in a number of elections worldwide. In Malaysia, the nongovernmental organization Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections conducted a study before the country’s 2004 general elections and found numerous inaccuracies in the electoral rolls. In one instance, a total of 142 voters were registered at a single address-at which stood a wooden shack selling knick-knacks-and in another, 156 voters were registered at a nonexistent “phantom” address.3
A surge in voter registration is another probable indication of deliberate manipulation. In Georgia, there was a surge of registration in some districts before the fraudulent 2003 parliamentary elections. In half of Tbilisi’s districts, for example, the number of registered voters increased by more than 50 percent.4 In Ukraine’s presidential elections of 2004, inexplicably large numbers of voters were added to voter lists in some places between the first round and the runoff.5
Agents of the ruling regime may also remove, misspell, or leave off names of voters who are members of certain demographic groups, such as first-time voters or those concentrated in geographic areas where support for opposition candidates is strongest. In Ukraine, election observers reported a case where all voters living in one apartment building were missing from the voter list.
The voter-registration process may raise deliberate or inadvertent obstacles for pro-opposition voters. Before Cambodia’s 2003 parliamentary elections, for example, first-time voters-a group that disproportionately favored the opposition-were discouraged or prevented from registering and thus from voting. Some registration centers were closed during part of the required opening hours; others lacked critical forms or materials (such as cameras needed to take photos for voter cards). Officials at other centers made it difficult for citizens to obtain documents required for registration (such as residency papers).6
Electoral Competition
Ruling parties skew electoral competition to their advantage through many methods, some more crude than others. They may obstruct the opposition and its supporters, pressure ordinary citizens, use state resources to support incumbents, stack electoral commissions with their stalwarts, or control the media.
The regime may directly attack opposition candidates, sending police forces to detain them or thugs to assault or even kill them. A brazen example of violence directed against opposition candidates took place in 2004, when Ukraine’s main presidential challenger, Viktor Yushchenko, was poisoned with dioxin in an apparent assassination attempt. Pressure on opposition candidates, however, is usually more subtle. In Azerbaijan’s 2005 parliamentary elections, authorities threatened to launch tax investigations against candidates, close candidates’ or their families’ businesses, and criminally prosecute them.7
Authoritarian regimes may also keep opposition candidates off the ballot. This is a blunt method of rigging elections, but it effectively preempts competition. In Iran, the Guardian Council thwarted the opposition in the 2004 parliamentary elections by disqualifying about 2,400 candidates. In Russia, disqualification of candidates is rare but still occurs. When former vice-president Alexander Rutskoi was running for reelection as regional governor of Kursk in 2000, he was removed from the ballot one day before the election because of technical violations on his candidate-filing forms.
A more subtle way to manipulate electoral competition is to register unknown candidates with the same name as the candidate whom the ruling regime seeks to defeat; this confuses voters and draws votes away from that candidate. The ballot in a 1998 race for a city assembly seat in St. Petersburg, Russia, featured three candidates named Oleg Sergeyev. One candidate was the reformist incumbent, while the other two-a retiree and an unemployed laborer-never once made a public appearance or used their allotment of free campaign television time.”
Authoritarian regimes also restrict or undermine opposition candidates’ electoral campaigns. They may deny permission for opposition candidates to hold campaign rallies, stop buses of opposition supporters from reaching the rallies, or even break up the rallies by force. In Kazakhstan’s 2005 presidential election, the main challenger complained that only five of his fifty-one requests for open meetings with voters were approved, and of those five meetings, four were allowed to take place only at some distance from the town center.9
Pressure can also be put on opposition-party activists in a number of ways: Local officials may deny them services or benefits to which they are entitled; they may be detained or arrested by police; and they may be beaten up or even murdered by thugs organized by ruling-party officials. Murders of opposition activists, even if they are rare, can have a profound effect. They send a chilling message to other opposition activists and create a climate of fear.
Supporters of the opposition often feel the pressing weight of the regime. In the campaign for Cambodia’s 2003 parliamentary elections, local organizers of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) used a combination of gifts and threats to influence members of the royalist party Funcinpec. At village public ceremonies, Funcinpec members were given gifts and then told to swear an oath of allegiance to the CPP. The ceremonies sometimes were held in pagodas or in the presence of Buddhist monks, giving participants the impression that breaking their oath would be comparable to violating religious tenets. In some cases, participants were instructed to confirm their oath with a thumbprint on a written document. They were later told that they had in fact signed a loan agreement-but that if the CPP won the vote in the village, they would not have to repay the loan. At times they were told that the CPP would find out if they voted for Funcinpec.10 The combination of gifts and threats was a powerful way to make Funcinpec members feel beholden to the CPP for their livelihood and to intimidate them into supporting the CPP.
Even ordinary citizens who are not aligned with any particular party may feel the regime’s pressure, especially if they rely on the state for their livelihood. The director of a state-owned factory, for example, might tell employees to sign a declaration of support for the ruling party or else risk losing their jobs. In Ethiopia’s 2005 parliamentary elections, election observers reported that public officials threatened to dispossess peasants of their land and to dismiss students who refused to sign a commitment to vote for the ruling party.11
Ruling-party incumbents may gain unfair advantages through the illegal use of state resources. The ruling party may mobilize state employees, use government-owned vehicles to travel to rallies, or pay for expenses with diverted public funds. In addition, incumbents can gain significant advantage through their dominance of election commissions.
A dominant presence of ruling-party members or supporters on election commissions, from the national level down to the polling-station level, can seriously skew the election process. During the campaign period, election officials can boost the ruling party’s chances by failing to enforce compliance with election law and regulations. In rigged elections, when opposition candidates raise complaints about ruling party violations, election officials often dismiss the violations on technical or other grounds. The failure of election officials to rectify violations of election law and regulations allows the ruling party to get away with restrictions on opposition campaigns and with illegal uses of state resources.
Election commissions can also undermine fair competition by making significant decisions in the final days of the election campaign. A last-minute change in election-day procedures, for instance, may sow confusion among provincial and local election officials and undercut any improvement that the change was intended to achieve. Unless it is approved by all major political parties, a last-minute rule change is inherently suspect. Election commissions also have enormous influence over the transparency of the electoral process. They can close off critical parts of the process to scrutiny by the opposition and the public. Moreover, large-scale election fraud, particularly at the vote-tabulation stage, can take place only with the collusion of senior election officials.
The regime may also use its control over the media to weaken the opposition. Journalists who provide sympathetic coverage for opposition candidates may be detained, arrested, threatened, or physically attacked. Pro-opposition television networks, radio stations, or newspapers may be subjected to a tax investigation, with the intent to harass them or to find a pretext to shut them down. Transmission of television or radio broadcasts may be blocked. Newspapers may have their print run confiscated, or find out that their printing house has run out of paper or refuses to do their printing. Laws to protect the president’s honor or to prohibit defamation of candidates can provide a pretext for authorities to impose fines on newspapers and restrict free speech during election campaigns, as has been the case in Kazakhstan.
Government censorship can be structured and systematic. In Ukraine, former president Leonid Kuchma’s administration issued temnyky (themes or guidelines) on how the media should report on certain issues. Among these temnyky were instructions for the media to emphasize infighting among opposition leaders and to portray opposition leaders as advocates of extremist ethnic demands.12 In Ukraine’s 2004 presidential campaign, anonymously authored materials were distributed in an effort to discredit major candidates-particularly, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko. These materials-whose target audience was Ukraine’s substantial ethnic-Russian minority-misrepresented his policy positions and portrayed him as a hardline Ukrainian nationalist.
Under authoritarian regimes, major media companies are often owned by individuals closely aligned with the ruling party. These individuals sometimes allow ruling-party candidates to gain preferential access to advertising space or charge them lower rates than the opposition. In Kazakhstan’s 2005 presidential election, opposition candidates were informed that there was no space available for their billboards, even though there was plenty of space for billboards of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Ruling parties often benefit from unbalanced coverage on television and radio, particularly from national television stations, which are the principal source of news for many voters. Election laws and regulations may call for balanced media coverage during the election campaign, but they are often inadequate or poorly enforced. For example, they may require the state media to provide candidates with equal allotments of free-air time but exempt private media from that requirement. Election commissions often neglect to monitor, let alone enforce, requirements for balanced media coverage; as a result, primetime news and other television broadcasts often favor the ruling party, as incumbents receive more extensive and more positive coverage than opposition candidates. Television news programs sometimes provide far more extensive and positive coverage for the incumbent leader than for opposition candidates on the pretext that they are reporting on the incumbent in his capacity as a state official, not as a candidate for réélection.
Election Day
On the day of voting, electoral-authoritarian regimes have used a variety of methods to boost their candidates’ vote totals. Methods range from crude maneuvers to ingenious schemes that are difficult to detect. Domestic and international attention to the electoral process reaches its height on election day, and yet some instances of manipulation may go undetected by observers. Fraud and manipulation cannot be uncovered when observers are denied access to polling stations or are blocked from viewing the vote-counting process.
Ruling regimes were guilty of blatant electoral fraud in Egypt’s 2005 presidential elections and Nigeria’s 2003 national and state elections. In Egypt, security officials went so far as to destroy ballots cast for opposition candidates.13 In Nigeria, ballot boxes were stuffed on election day-in full view of election observers. At one polling station, European Union (EU) observers witnessed the presiding officer marking ballots for Nigeria’s ruling People’s Democratic Party. At another station, EU observers found that, though the ballot box was full by around midday, only 85 names on the list of 743 registered voters were ticked. At a third polling station, 50 cast ballots were suspiciously folded in the same way, and the first 50 names on the voter list were ticked in alphabetical order. Elsewhere, the EU observers actually saw people snatching ballot boxes.14
Multiple voting is yet another method of vote fraud. Sometimes, a listed voter may find ways to cast more than one ballot. At other times, an unknown individual may simply appear at the polling station to vote in the name of a deceased voter or to cast a ballot without marking his or her name on the voter list. In past decades in Mexico, such individuals were called paracaidistas (parachutists), because they seemed to drop out of the sky and into polling stations to cast ballots.15
Ukraine had its fair share of paracaidistas in its 2004 presidential election. Busloads of people simply appeared at polling stations, many bearing absentee-voting certificates that allowed them to cast ballots at polling stations other than the ones at which they were officially registered. Some people reportedly were being bussed from one polling station to another in order to use these absentee-voting certificates at multiple polling stations.
Vote-buying is another well-known tactic. Agents of the authoritarian government cannot, however, always rely on bribes, because voters may take the money or gifts but then vote for opposition candidates. In Thailand, when a ruling party distributed rice in return for votes, the opposition would tell voters to take the rice but vote their conscience. Vote-buying usually works as the briber intends only when the secrecy of the ballot is compromised or when it is combined with pressure exerted on those bribed. In Egypt’s 2005 presidential election, agents of the ruling National Democratic Party reportedly gave voters money and then accompanied them inside the polling station to ensure that they voted for President Hosni Mubarak. In Serbia during the 1990s, agents of then-president Slobodan Milosevic concocted a less heavy-handed scheme to ensure that those bribed would vote for Milosevic. As later reported by opposition activists, Milosevic’s agents would target groups of voters, such as workers from a state-owned factory. The first voter was given a ballot that was already marked for Milosevic, and was then instructed to enter the polling station and cast that marked ballot. That voter would then exit the station and give the agent his or her blank ballot in return for cash. The agent then marked the blank ballot for Milosevic and gave it to the second voter in the group, who was instructed to do the same as the first voter. Through this scheme, the agents ensured that all of the group’s voters cast their ballots for Milosevic; there was no way to detect this fraud, unless one of the voters reported it. Similar schemes were also used in past decades in Mexico, where they were called carruseles (carousels).
Subtle or overt pressure may also sway voters to cast ballots for ruling-party candidates. Ruling-party agents may post their campaign materials inside polling stations; polling-station officials may explain the voting procedures in a way that favors ruling-party candidates; unauthorized persons, often security officials, may interfere in or direct the voting process; and marked ballots may be placed unfolded in a transparent ballot box, where they are visible to polling-station officials or political-party agents.
Election-day fraud is often carried out as part of an organized effort. In Ukraine, agents of Viktor Yanukovych attempted to rig the 2004 presidential election on a grand scale. Subsequently released recordings of Yanukovych’s campaign workers’ remarks convey how the government tried to make plans for Yanukovych to win by about 3 percent (a margin which they felt would secure victory but also make it appear as if the competition was not rigged). An elaborate plan was created to fulfill the goal: Targets were set for the share of the vote that would go to Yanukovych in different districts and cities, agents were provided with precise instructions on how to steal votes, and election officials were promised a substantial payment if they complied with the government’s directives.16
The risk of electoral fraud is even greater when voters cast ballots outside the polling station, as these ballots are easily vulnerable to manipulation. In many countries, a mobile ballot box is sent to the homes of voters who are ill, elderly, or otherwise unable to get to the polling station, and election officials may pressure these voters to vote for the ruling party or even tamper with their ballots. Unless mobile ballot boxes are accompanied by opposition-party agents, they become easy targets for ruling-party agents who are looking for an opportunity to stuff them with illegal ballots. In Ukraine, there were a few cases in which more than 30 percent of the polling station’s votes were cast in the mobile ballot box, and cases where the signatures of voters who used the mobile ballot box all looked alike, raising observers’ suspicions. Voting by mail, which is fairly common in advanced democracies, is also susceptible to abuse unless proper safeguards are in place. In Birmingham, England, a court threw out the results of two local-council elections in 2005 after reviewing many instances of fraud and manipulation, casting England’s postal-ballot system into doubt.17
Vote Count and Vote Tabulation
After the polls have closed, the vote count provides further opportunities for agents of the ruling party to steal votes. Polling-station officials may favor the ruling party as they apply the rules on what constitutes a valid ballot; when a ballot is marked incorrectly but the voter’s intention is clear, they may decide it is invalid if it is marked for an opposition candidate but accept it as valid if it is marked for a ruling-party candidate. In countries where election procedures state that a ballot is invalid if it contains any stray marks, polling-station officials may put stray marks on ballots cast for opposition candidates. When officials fill out the station’s record of the vote count (often referred to as the “protocol”), they may inflate the results for ruling-party candidates or take votes away from opposition candidates. Officials connected to the ruling party are most likely to tamper with results at stations where no opposition-party agents or independent election observers are present.
The introduction of electronic voting machines can create new opportunities for fraud. These machines can be programmed to alter the vote count-for example, to record votes for a ruling-party candidate when the votes are cast for an opposition candidate. There is no firm evidence to date of such abuses, but electronic-voting-machine fraud may go undetected unless the machines are subject to regular audits and produce a paper record of each vote that the voter can verify.18
At the polling-station level, a “retail” version of vote theft may occur as the ballots are counted. The possibility of “wholesale” vote theft occurs when the votes are aggregated and tabulated at the provincial and national levels. During the vote tabulation, ruling-party agents may convert a defeat into a victory. In Mexico, such agents were known as alquimistas (alchemists).
Vote tabulation can be rigged in manifold ways. For one, the ruling party may tamper with ballot boxes as they are transported from polling stations to provincial counting centers. In Egypt’s 2005 parliamentary elections, some ballot boxes were stolen during transport and destroyed, with their remnants left strewn about in the streets. Agents may also stuff ballot boxes that are being transported to provincial counting centers. Counting-center officials may falsify official records as they aggregate polling stations’ election results.
When opposition-party representatives and independent election observers are denied access or are unable to adequately monitor the vote-tabulation process, official records of election results are often falsified. At vote-count centers in Egypt during the 2005 parliamentary elections, poll-watchers were unable to monitor the entire vote tabulation as no more than two poll-watchers were permitted per candidate, even though scores of ballot boxes were being counted simultaneously. Sometimes, officials from provincial and national election commissions refuse to announce the breakdown of election results by polling station and by province, thereby obstructing scrutiny of the vote tabulation. Without such a breakdown, opposition-party representatives and election monitors cannot verify whether or not individual station results were accurately added into the vote totals at the provincial and national levels. Officials from the national election commission may also refuse to tell the opposition and the public how many ballots were printed and how many blank ballots were distributed to each province before election day, making it difficult to verify aggregate vote totals. Election monitors need to know the number of blank ballots distributed in order to compare it to the number of votes cast, as well as to invalid, spoiled, and unused ballots.
The announcement of implausible election results usually indicates that vote tabulations were falsified. In Nigeria’s 2003 presidential election, which took place on the same day as the gubernatorial elections, there was a large discrepancy in some regions between the total number of votes cast for president and for governor. Moreover, implausibly high voter-turnout rates of over 90 percent were officially announced in some states.”
Detection and Prevention
Since every stage in the electoral process is vulnerable, electoral manipulation is difficult to prevent. Election observation nonetheless has proven effective time and again in detecting and documenting deficiencies, manipulation, and fraud, thereby challenging the legitimacy of rulers who seek to stay in power through rigged elections. To deter fraud and manipulation, election observers need to promote transparency in the entire electoral process, to call for substantial representation of opposition parties or independents on election commissions, to monitor every stage of the electoral process effectively, and to document and publicize any abuses that take place.20
Appropriate and well-enforced election laws and regulations are critical for ensuring the transparency of the electoral process. They can promote transparency by guaranteeing access for political party agents and independent observers to monitor the entire electoral process; by requiring polling-station officials to make public and to provide to candidate representatives official copies of the results protocols; and by instructing the national election commission to provide details on the numbers of blank ballots printed and distributed and on the breakdown of election results by polling station.
Representation on election commissions gives the opposition access to decision making on the procedures and conduct of elections. This access can be used to introduce procedures for deterring fraud, such as requiring polling-station officials to seal ballot boxes until the vote count begins and to stain the fingers of voters with indelible ink after they have cast their ballots. The opposition’s participation in election commissions also helps to promote enforcement of election laws and regulations. Unless independent or pro-opposition election commissioners press for enforcement, violations of election laws and regulations are likely to go unpunished. In addition, representation on election commissions is essential for the opposition to prevent official collusion in large-scale electoral fraud and manipulation.
Transparency will do little to help opposition parties unless they use it to monitor the entire electoral process effectively, from the registration of voters to the vote tabulation. Assessment of voter registration lists is straightforward, though rather labor-intensive. It requires contacting a random sample of voters selected from the voter rolls and checking the accuracy of their listed information. Voters who cannot be located at their registered address probably are ineligible. Election monitors may also conduct a separate assessment to find out whether the voter list is complete. To do so, they visit a random sample of residences, identify the adult citizens, and then look for their names on the voter list. Adult citizens omitted from the voter list probably are eligible voters who have been disenfranchised.
During the campaign period, observers need to monitor media coverage of candidates and to identify any abuse of state resources for campaign purposes.21 By reporting their findings while the campaign is still underway, observers can draw attention to unfair competition and can generate pressure on election officials to correct any media imbalance or abuse of state resources.
To monitor election day effectively, opposition parties and nonpartisan organizations need to deploy trained observers to every polling station and every vote-counting center in the country. These observers will be effective only if they are trained to separate rumor from factrumors of electoral fraud are common in hotly contested elections-and properly to document and report observed instances of electoral fraud. Opposition parties and nonpartisan monitors also need to communicate their findings to international observers and media in order to draw worldwide attention to any electoral fraud or manipulation.
By calling attention to the types of fraud that are anticipated on election day, election monitors can make the public aware of likely threats to fair elections. They may also help to deter fraud by reminding election officials and ruling-party agents of the legal penalties for violations of the election law and by pledging to do their utmost to ensure prosecution of any such violations.
Sometimes effective election observation can even compensate for a lack of transparency in the electoral process. A parallel vote tabulation, for example, can serve to check the accuracy of officially announced election results. In President Slobodan Milosevic’s bid for reelection in 2000, Yugoslavia’s Federal Election Commission falsified the election results. The opposition, however, had conducted a parallel vote tabulation and thus was able to announce accurate election results before the official falsified results came out. Furthermore, the opposition was able to prove that the results it announced were accurate because it had collected official copies of protocols from virtually all the polling stations in Serbia.
In response to the proven effectiveness of observers in exposing electoral abuses, authoritarian regimes have begun to manipulate election observation itself. They have invited little-known groups, often with clear sympathies for the regime, to send observers who will issue positive assessments of rigged elections. In Azerbaijan, for example, an ad hoc group of U.S. observers praised the 2005 parliamentary elections, even though the official International Election Observation Mission, led by the Organization for security and Cooperation in Europe, concluded that the elections fell short of democratic standards. The ad hoc group was sponsored by Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission and thus was in no position to offer a credible independent judgment on the electoral process.
In October 2005, at a ceremony hosted by United Nations secretarygeneral Kofi Annan, established international election observation organizations, including both intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, signed a Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation. This Declaration sets out the principles for impartial election observation and thus helps to distinguish legitimate monitoring missions from those that lack credibility.
This tug-of-war between authoritarian regimes seeking to bolster their legitimacy through rigged elections and observer groups trying to deter or bring to light electoral manipulation is sure to continue. In a few notable cases-Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and Ukraine in 2004the exposure of electoral fraud has sparked popular uprisings that led to the demise of authoritarian rulers. Nonetheless, in recent years most flawed elections have left the ruling party still in power. Yet even in these cases-including the latest elections in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Belarus-observers who document the unfair victories of electoral authoritarian regimes are able to deny authoritarian rulers the democratic legitimacy that they vainly seek.
[Sidebar]
In response to the proven effectiveness of observers in exposing electoral abuses, authoritarian regimes have begun to manipulate election observation itself.
UNMASKED: Ex-Nation FM’s ANGELA ANGWENYI stole 90million with WAIGURU from NYS.
October 19, 2015
Monday October 19, 2015 – There are new details emerging how former Nation FM presenter, Angela Angwenyi, stole Sh 90 million from the National Youth Service (NYS) that is under the able hands on Cabinet Secretary, Anne Waiguru.
Using her company, Out of Box Solutions, the former radio queen defrauded NYS Sh 90 million with the help of Devolution Cabinet Secretary, Miss Anne Waiguru.
These new details were shared by successful businessman, Jacob Juma, who vowed to unmask all corrupt mongrels who stole Sh 791 million from NYS.
“ANGELA ANGWENYI defrauded NYS sh90m using her company, OUT OF BOX SOLUTIONS thro’ Waiguru, via Access to Goverment Procurement Opportunity,” Jacob Juma said on Monday evening.
This news may explain why the popular radio presenter resigned from her job mid this year saying she needs time to pursue more personal “business” and grow her ‘entrepreneurial skills’.
Angela formed her company, Out of Box Solutions Ltd, and within 30 days, she won a tender at NYS after she was introduced to NYS big shots by Anne Waiguru herself
A source at NMG has matched the dates of the NYS saga and said that she quit her job immediately after the payments were approved for goods/services she never delivered to NYS.
Angela Angwenyi was a sturdy defender of Anne Waiguru, who is the second most corrupt woman in Kenya.
Waiguru is alleged to have used different firms to defraud NYS and Angwenyi’s firm is one of them.
The Kenyan DAILY POST