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Saturday, January 19, 2013

Dirty Kenyan Politics Part 3: Nominations

As Ferdinand Waititu secures TNA nomination for governor

Read Part 1 of this article
Read Part 2 of this article

The most surprising thing about the nomination chaos witnessed countrywide is that it has caught many Kenyans unawares.

But why should it when the country has been neatly divided into tribal zones where winning the nomination of the tribe’s political party is an automatic pass to the desired seat? That means that candidates will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to get the party nomination. Indeed in many instances the budget for the nominations is much higher than what will be spent on the actual election.

Dirty tricks are much easier to use during nominations because the political parties cannot be as stringent organized and professional as the national electoral body, the IEBC. Is it not much easier to bribe some party official overseeing some nomination process? In any case has anybody carefully examined the real motive for most in taking up the responsibility of being a returning officer for their political party? Let me spell it out for you; personal fundraising. And it is fundraising for big projects like buying a shamba. And fortunately for those with these kinds of motives the 2013 elections are a goldmine.

Remember that we have more elective posts than we have ever had before. And the posts people are going for are pretty powerful. Being an MP is nothing. A governor for instance has more power than the president and will be a true boss in a county. Even senators will have much more clout than members of the national assembly. However most Kenyans at the grassroots level are still to come to terms with these new realities and so to them an MP is still a very important person indeed.

When you take all these facts into consideration then the only conclusion is that the nominations that we have just witnessed went pretty well.

Headquarters of rigging
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Most people are unaware of the real politics behind these nominations. Admittedly when a party is popular in a certain region rivals will always try to disrupt things by planting their own less popular candidate and looking for a way for them to win. In other instances they will allow their “planted” candidate to go through on the ticket of the popular party thus having their man or woman on the inside of the rival party for the purposes of passing on information and even voting in their favour when crucial bills come up for a vote.

For this reason party big wigs usually sit in Nairobi carefully monitoring the results coming in from all over the country and where for some reason they doubt the winner (or don’t like them), all they have to do is place a call and strange things start happening on the ground.

Politics can hardly get any dirtier than that.

Waititu Bags TNA Nomination For Nairobi Governor

Just a few days after my much-maligned-Sonko-for-president post rogue MP Ferdinand Waititu has beaten Jimnah Mbaru for the TNA nomination for Nairobi governor.

What is interesting is that Mbaru beat Waititu in the latter’s own backyard of Embakasi. Clearly there is something that went very wrong there.


The bottom line is that Nairobians need to prepare themselves for governor Waititu, as mentioned in this blog many months ago, he is unbeatable.

All in all this is a sign of things to come and Kenyans should be prepared to see a class war clearly emerge in these elections.

6 comments:

  1. "Remember that we have MORE ELECTIVE POSTS than we have ever had before. And the posts people are going for are pretty POWERFUL."

    xxxx

    Translated from CIVILIZED language into the uncouth language of Gikimba University, the above means that, THERE SHALL BE MORE PARASITES on the shoulders of the poor.

    It must be so because, Adam Smith taught us that:

    "But this proportion [OF WEALTH] must in EVERY nation be regulated by two different circumstances; first, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which its labor is generally applied;[the PRODUCTIVITY of labor which is ALMOST ZERO in Kenya] and,

    secondly, by the proportion between the number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed[ SUCH AS THE NEW ELECTIVE POWERFUL POSTS].

    Whatever be the soil, climate, or extent of territory of any particular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply [WEALTH must, in that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances."

    xxxx

    "The most surprising thing about the nomination chaos witnessed countrywide is that it has caught many Kenyans unawares."

    Because, MOST Kenyans live in that world of DELUSION, ILLUSION and INFANTILE FANTASIES!

    xxx

    "All in all this is a sign of things to come and Kenyans should be prepared to see a class war clearly emerge in these elections."

    Ati class wars? Where?

    With that, we are off to enjoy:

    Rub a dub style

    http://is.gd/MlLqNh

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nairobi will be ruled by Waititu, Sonko and Shebesh. Great team, si you agree m-pesa?

    ReplyDelete
  3. During the sham and delayed nominations, Mbaru supporters were impatient and left the queues in a huff because they had to dash back to work quickly.

    Waititu's supporters stayed put because most of them are young and jobless youth from various slums in the city like Korogocho, Mukuru, Mathare, Kibera etc. Sonko won by a landslide, it's the same supporters who elected waititu!

    Don't forget 70 percent of Nairobians live in various slums and when it comes to elections, they call the shots. Most of them don't read blogs or newspapers, actually they heard of Jimnah Mbaru just a few weeks ago when he declared his candidature.


    They see him as the snobbish and golfing type who has never slept hungry. On the other hand, Waititu and Sonko are always the first whenever there's demolition or fire in these slums fighting even physically for them.

    I'm not shocked that Waititu sailed through. Once you win the hearts and minds of the poor and oppressed, then nothing else matters in elections. Mbaru even published his CV which is over 30 pages long. To the holloi polloi out there, those are just useless pieces of papers.

    Of course to me and you reading this, belching and farting after your five course meal, Mbaru would make the better Governor being a highly decorated technocrat and suave CEO with all his grand plans.

    But sorry, that's NOT how democracy works! Majority have their way while minority have their say. I suspect tribeless middle-class in TNA may "defect" to Kidero or still vote Mbaru if he defects to UDF like someone told me he may. But will it be enough to defeat Waititu with all the strong support he has in the slums? Nope!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ati class wars? Where?

    xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Mwarang'ethe, kindly explain what you mean by this.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Reminds me of the days when elders from my father's former village were heavily involved in parochial wrangling, mudslinging, malicious backstabbing, and cliquishness, all of which resulted in communial wounding that took the whole village deep into the era of the cavemen's world.

    Unfortunately, singing the 'The Songs of the Disgraced Ancestors' with deep shame is all that remains for those of us who are alive today.

    As for Nairobi County, the residents may end up singing the worst kind of songs if they elect the wrong type of political leaders for all the wrong type of reasons.

    Sadly, they wiil be damned if they vote for Mh. Rusha Mawe Waititu formerly of Embakasi, and also damned if they decide to vote for Bw. Nyapara 'Msomi' Kidero formerly of the not so ancient sugar plantations of Wanga Kingdom.

    Ole Nairobi County, it is going to get caught up between huge rocks and very hard places for a long time to come.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Where have the real learned women of Kenya gone?

    Dirty politics have been the perfected art and modi oprandi in the whole of Kenya for over the last five decades, and the oldest school of politicians dating back to the 1950s and 60s are not only to blame, but the consequent generations of Kenyans are equally to blame for the current sordid nature of country's politics.

    That is one of the reasons likes of Waititu and other wannabes attempting to become part of the notoriously lethargic circle of Nairobi politicians are not wholly to blame for the bizarre manner in which they are already salivating for the governorship of Nairobi County due to severe lack of worthy female and male applicants as well as the abysmal competition at various party levels.

    'Cause segements of the populations in Nairobi and around the country have had their hopes or expectations prevented from being relised in the wake of the new Constitution due to the simple fact that the learned - so-called our lettered - women in and around Nairobi County, including other women of substance from the rest of country have yet to stand up and be counted - for once - when it matters most for them and the next four to six generations of Kenyan women.

    For instance, the public has been left wondering and asking what does it really mean for all women in the country when over eighteen [18] women end up putting themselves forward formally as candidates for the now vacant Deputy Chief Justice's position that is still begging to be grasped and pulled abruptly with the - soon to be potent - presence of the next confirmed 'susbtitute' for the former DCJ who fell out of grace a while ago.

    Yet only two women - one of whom was disqualified - from the entire learned brigades of Kenyan women dared to stand up in spite the muddy political waters and overly skewed party nomination process that have become the norm during every general election season.

    Where are all the learned women gone when their counties and country need them to stand up and be counted in coming general election?

    Where are the women of substance when they are needed most in terms of helping change the course of the nation's political future, and consequently impact the economic and social well-being of a larger percentage of Kenyan children, young adults, women, men and the elderly?

    And when will there ever be a show of force in terms of contemptuous defiance against the crude and corrupted political nomination procedures that have been allowed to take root nationwide?

    ReplyDelete

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