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Sunday, October 05, 2008

The Standard Reveals Electoral Theft

The Standard on Sunday has today published a story that has confirmed massive irregularities, blackmail and theft that were behind Kivuitu’s astonishing declaration that Kibaki was the winner of the presidential polls.

Indeed, the story reveals a scheme that was mooted to deliberately prevent the ODM candidate Raila Odinga from ascending to the presidency through a fair, transparent and democratic means and it is not surprising no single observer group gave the election a clean bill of health.

The standard story further corroborates some truly tragic events captured in the Kriegler IREC report as well as those that were sensationally revealed by whistleblower Mr Kipkemoi arap Kirui who became a marked man as soon as he addressed an international press conference called by ODM leaders at KICC in which he said:

"I am speaking to the people of Kenya. My conscience would not allow me to see what I have seen and not speak about it. ECK is responsible for this mess. They (results) are altered here, not in the field. Form 16A is sufficient. I did it for the first time but could not proceed to the second constituency because of shameless, blatant, open alteration of documents presented by the returning officers. My conscience would not allow me to sit and keep quiet."

The publication comes against the backdrop of sustained pressure on ECK commissioners to resign and pave way for reforming Kenya’s electoral laws and institutions. It is emerging that a certain group within government does not want ECK commissioners to resign for fear that they will spill the beans with information that will be a threat to the viability of the grand coalition government and their own individual positions with it.

Interestingly, the riggers considered all bizarre possibilities including “allowing” Raila to win the presidency but lose the Langata parliamentary seat by force, and in process create a constitutional crisis that would allow the runners up (Kibaki) to continue ruling the country.

The report puts Kalonzo Musyoka – ODM-K presidential candidate and party leader – in an awkward position. Kalonzo was appointed Vice President in mid-January, just weeks after fighting a 'bruising bitter electoral contest' with Kibaki and Raila. It also shows Kalonzo’s agents actively participated in denying Kenyans the constitutional and democratic rights by putting undue pressure on Kivuitu while abetting what was clearly an electoral theft through fraudulent tallying.

What is the purpose of spending huge resources and have millions of citizens vote in general elections if the winner is already predetermined?

Read the standard story here.