A Digital Essay by Onyango Oloo in Montreal
1.0.Another Charade in Kisauni
When he was still alive,
the late unlamented warlord Karisa Maitha could offer more than a few lessons on the subject of electoral fraud, state sponsored violence and ethnic incitement. As this candid confession reveals, Karisa Maitha and his Kenya government handlers cynically manipulated the simmering tribal resentments at the Coast to both intimidate voters with roots in the so called Wabara communities on the one hand while also fighting a racist campaign pitting Wapwani of Mijikenda backgrounds against those of Swahili and Arab extraction. It was not for nothing that this killer earned the moniker “Hurricane” and it is not an accident that one of his closest collaborators was a Ugandan torturer and hoodlum known as Omar Masumbuko, a goon who had once worked for Idi Amin Dada’s dreaded State Research Bureau.
Kenyan political prostitution is so brazen that it was without batting an eyelid that Maitha transferred his brutal talents from KANU to Kibaki’s Democratic Party(itself one of the LAST offshoots to decamp from Moi's KANU, some say with Mtukufu's tacit blessings because it was seen as a counteweight to Matiba's Ford-Asili which itself was supposed to undercut Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Ford-Kenya). The fact that Karisa Maitha was
one of Kibaki’s confidants and most trusted lieutenants should give all Kenyan democrats reason to pause and dig beneath the avuncular and affable veneer of the devious invalid sleeping nightly at Ikulu.
Well placed sources revealed to the Kenya Democracy Project shortly after he exited from this life that the true cause of Karisa Maitha’s death was to be sought in the late minister’s hotel suite. Or rather in a medicine cabinet in the adjoining toilet.
Apparently the corpulent, punani loving marehemu Waziri (he had three OFFICIAL wives, with a fourth Muslim spouse emerging from the woodwork, and who knows how many nyumba ndogos and ndogo ndogos!) took a lethal dose of Viagra just before copulating with his third wife Alice when they were in Germany. It was lethal because the former Tourism Minister also had a heart condition which does not go very well with Pfizer’s product.
So he croaked, literally, in the middle of making love to his wife. The most optimistic take of Karisa Maitha’s autopsy report was that at least he died a happy man.
Karisa Maitha’s death unleashed a veritable sarakasi(circus).
First there was the melodrama within the Maitha family. Soon after Kibaki had stood in the late minister’s living room and announced that Kenyan tax payers would pay off the huge mortgage that Maitha had left behind, his younger brother Steve Mramba overconfidently announced that he was the family’s choice to fill his older brother’s ghoulish, blood-soaked boots. What Steve did not reckon with was that the Kenyan who knew most about Maitha’s final moments- his widow Alice, had political ambitions of her own. Who knows if Karisa had told her to go for it in a death bed last will and testament fuelled by coital bliss and orgasmic gratitude?
Whatever the case, Steve Mramba was having none of that. His patriarchal rage flared as he waxed apoplectic at the audacity of a mere co-wife to defy what the wanaume of the Maitha family had decreed. Those of us who were already privy to the Viagra dossier knew EXACTLY what Steve Mramba was talking about when he challenged Alice to tell Kenyans exactly what had killed his older brother in Germany.
In hindsight, the Maitha family should have not wasted their time bickering with each other and soaking and rinsing their stained linen hadharani. When it came to the NARC nominations, the LDP juggernaut simply smothered Steve Mramba and Alice Maitha as
Ali Hassan Joho romped home to victory with a very visible one sided landslide that literally buried his opponents in a combined heap of shock, embarrassment and vengeance.
The first sign that something was amiss was when a court temporarily halted the by-elections under very dubious circumstances ostensibly because a voter linked to one of the sore losers was aggrieved.
Very soon it was quite clear that the power mongering NAK sect was NOT going to live with the Kiswahili dictum, asiyekubali kushindwa si mshindani.
We expected the spineless also rans to decamp from NARC immediately upon losing the nomination. After all, what do these so called wanasiasa stand for except for the siasa za tumbo, ubinafsi na ukabila? (the politics of the stomach, selfishness and tribalism for our non-Kiswahili readers). It was comical to observe Ananias Mwaboza became the flag bearer of the Labour Party of Kenya only to have Dr Julia Ojiambo, Kenyatta era assistant minister and present day NARC nominated MP who happens to be an official of the Labour Party of Kenya categorically dissociate herself from that Mwaboza's opportunistic dalliance- only to realize that there is ANOTHER LPK linked to former Changamwe MP Kennedy Kiliku that is readily accessible to defeated NARC aspirants and political turncoats with an overt ethnic agenda like the future cabinet minister Ananias Mwaboza.
What was shocking and bizarre was to witness MINISTERS and MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT from the ruling so called ati “National” Rainbow ati “Coalition” OVERTLY campaigning AGAINST their own DEMOCRATICALLY picked nominee, hitting the stumps instead for a loser who had DEFECTED to a party that is outside the ruling coalition. To see the name of the much touted reformist doyen, Prof. Kivutha Kibwana in that lineup was absolutely stomach churning.
In election day tactics eerily reminiscent of Karisa Maitha, goons associated with the ruling bloc’s OPPOSITION stooge attacked NARC MPs and did so with the most utmost criminal impunity.
And again, it was without a trace of surprise that a media organ associated with the government- the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation was the first to announce that the UNLIKELY had happened:
The NAK faction had succeeded in rigging NARC loser Ananias Mwaboza as the new MP on the OPPOSITION ticket.
Rigging and stealing of elections is as Kenyan as ugali na sukuma wiki. For the last forty years the ruling circles in this country- whether it was Kenyatta’s so called Kiambu Mafia, Moi’s back room boys or Kibaki’s NAK attack dogs like Mungatana, Murungaru and Majambazi wa Kisiasa Limited have used EVERYTHING at their disposal, from the PCs, the DCs, the Chiefs, the sub-chiefs and lukurus, the regular police, the AP, the Fanya Fujo Uone GSU the creepy Special Branch, even the Army at times, not forgetting the gunias full of jirongos, the kubes and pipas of changaa, busaa, mnazi, the misokoto of bhangi, the brothels full of cheap malayas, the matatus full of hired wakora, the lorries full of bribed voters, the villages intoxicated by tribal political jojuogi(night runners) the ballot boxes stuffed with friendly votes ahead of elections, poisoned arrows, sharpened pangas, stolen bundukis, lies on VOK/KBC/Kenya Times/NAKTION and of course, the Okiki Amayos, the Wilson Leitichs, the Mulu Mutisyas, the Mbiyu Koinanges, Oloo Aringos, Robert Matanos and Joseph Kamothos of a bygone era- and now the Koigi wa Wamweres, Kivutha Kibwanas, Danson Mungatanas and Kahindi Kingis of 2004.
Here is but a brief historical flashback:
On Kenyatta’s orders, Kariuki Chotara led goons to terrorize supporters of
Bildad Kaggia
in Kandara during the Little General Elections of 1966; On July 31, 1968, Bill Martin, the Nairobi District Commissioner declared that all 40 prospective KPU candidates vying in the various council wards in the city had filled in their nomination papers wrongly and were therefore null and void. This cynical administrative move provoked an angry protest demonstration in the streets of Nairobi. In the end 1,800 KPU candidates were disqualified on Kenyatta’s orders. KANU candidates were in effect elected”unopposed” in these dubious circumstances. The KPU withdrew their remaining candidates in protest. This you may recall was during the countrywide county, municipal, area, urban and city council local government elections that was supposed to be the first major show of the strength between the fledgling KPU and the KANU ruling party. Earlier in an unprecedented move, Kenyatta loyalist and KANU Secretary General Tom Mboya announced that henceforth, in all Kenyan elections, candidates must be approved by a registered party. This was a ploy directed at the KPU which nevertheless went ahead to nominate 2,000 candidates for the local elections. The Bill Martin counter move was KANU’s response. We also remember what happened to people like Mark Mwithaga in Nakuru in the mid 1970s, how JM Kariuki was killed; we recall how Jean-Marie Seroney and Shikuku were detained; how Chelagat Mutai and James Orengo were driven to exile and Koigi(yes the same Koigi!) detained and before that, how Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and George Anyona were barred from contesting the 1979 elections; how later the likes of Muliro and Shikuku and many others were rigged out during the controversial and infamous mlolongo travesty of February 1988; how ethnic clashes disenfranchised voters in Molo, Transmara, Burnt Forest, Likoni and elsewhere in 1992 and 1997.
That is why NAK’s political thuggery (and to a lesser extent, LDP’s) is nothing new.
What is new and ridiculous is to see the ruling party essentially campaigning against itself because some tribal buffoons fear the growing clout of Raila Odinga and the LDP.
I started sensing an organized electoral fraud happening in Kisauni when a Nairobi based netter that I have openly linked to the Kenyan security intelligence apparatus hinted darkly in a certain online forum that the NAK backed OPPOSITION dark horse would end up prevailing over the democratically chosen NARC nominee who had trounced all his opponents hands down.
It is macabre, it is surreal, is it not, to witness almost a replica of events involving two rising national stalwarts with the surname Odinga. In 1968 the ruling circle around Kenyatta used dirty tricks to shut the ascendancy of
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and the KPU. In 2004, the ruling circle around Kibaki has used the courts, hired ruffians and fork tongued politrickians to block the forward march of the LDP and its leader Raila Odinga.
Speaking personally, the real news and the real numbers is not the headline of Ananias Mwaboza being declared the new Kisauni MP with over 8,000 votes or the shock defeat of the OFFICIAL NARC candidate Ali Hassan Joho losing with almost 8,000 votes.
Hasha.
The real significant development lies elsewhere, buried in other statistics.
We are told that there are over 80,000 registered voters in Kisauni constituency.
Let us examine how they voted in the last TWELVE YEARS.
First, here are detailed results of the 1992, 1994 and 1997 elections and by-election outcomes.
And this is what happened in
December 2002 when Kisauni had 88,769 registered voters.
I wrote the first draft of this essay when the information available in the public domain at that time indicated that only 11% of those 88,769 registered voters bothered to line up outside the polling booths. A few hours later with all the results in, it would appear that slightly over 18,000 voters showed up. The turn out, which turns out to be 21% is still abysmally low compared to the December 2002 outing. The following paragraphs will be reworded slightly to read as follows:
Which is another way of saying that 80% of the voters in Kisauni BOYCOTTED or STAYED AWAY for one reason or another-election day mayhem not being an insignificant factor, by the way. According to the Standard of December 18th, 2004,"Joho said results at the two polling stations should be nullified because of "open intimidation by the Government with police officers watching as rowdy youths beat up LDP agents and MPs. The two polling stations are Ziwa La Ng’ombe and Mtopanga Primary School where my agents were beaten up and chased from the stations, my voters locked up and I could not go near the polling stations due to rowdy youths who had been planted by the Government," he claimed.
That is eight out of every ten Kisauni voters looking at the list of candidates and ticking NONE OF THE ABOVE from the comfort of their homes.
That is why NEITHER faction in the NARC ruling bloc should celebrate anything.
Instead they should be asking themselves these questions:
What happened to those 20,000 voters who showed up to vote for NARC in 2002?
What happened to the UNBWOGABLE Spirit which used to fill stadiums and streets in 2002?
Why have the MAJORITY of NARC supporters in Kisauni TUNED OUT from the NARC message, irrespective of whether it is the LDP or NAK message?
What are these pissed off, turned off former NARC voters in Kisauni thinking of?
Both NARC factions as well as KANU should realize that the just concluded Kisauni by election is a massive referendum.
I think this is very good news for Kenyans who are looking beyond the mainstream electoral contests. Far from being cynically turned off from the national political process, the wananchi are revealing that on the contrary, they are ready for a new politics, a new national discourse that is not predicated on who can buy the most votes or hire the burliest thugs.
Let me come back to this sub-theme towards the conclusion of this essay…
2.0.Dubya and the GOP Are Leading Experts in Modern Electoral Fraud
I am of the firm belief that the government of the USA should be banned and banished from monitoring ANY elections outside her boundaries. For far too long many a Third World nation-state has quivered like a hapless aspen leaf even as Uncle Sam delivers yet another vicious finger pointing tongue lashing about this infraction or the other. Where does Dubya get off talking about democracy? In 2000 he came to power through a naked coup that culminated in a dubious decision by the Supreme Court to subvert the democratic will of the American people. In November 2004 thanks to hi-tech electronic vote theft, old style racist voter intimidation and suppression and Kerry-Edwards spinelessness, George Bush and his gang managed to retain political power once again. This time around, millions of Americans are telling him to his face that he and his GOP machine are a menace to freedom and liberty in the United States itself. We have covered this subject extensively in this very blog in the last month or so.
For more information about George Bush and how he stole the 2004 American elections, please click here and here...
3.0.Ukraine: Exposing the Truth About Yet Another Soros-CIA-NGO-NDI- Coup in Eastern Europe
It is amazing how GULLIBLE some people are in the world today. Millions of consumers of mainstream media disinformation have swallowed whole the gunk and bunk fed to them by CNN, the BBC and other mainstream Western media networks.
I am talking about the
Viktor Yushchenko story.
You know the one about the Ukrainian politician who was allegedly “poisoned” because he was too popular and too pro- West.
Thanks to the information and scientific revolution and the growth of virtual digital communications around the globe, the truth is at the fingertips of ANYONE who can log on to the internet with a critical and open mind. I will let the following links weave an alternative scenario to the one that is being repeated ad infinitum by the mainstream media.
Ironically, the first alternative account is actually from a very mainstream Australian source.
It is followed by an item in an Irish newspaper and bolstered by a critical piece from Counterpunch, a respected American left leaning publication that actually indicts not just the Republican wing nuts in Washington but also the so called “opposition” Democrats in overseas electoral subversion.
This radical website smashes to smithereens the Dioxin poisoning theory.
While this mainline Indian newspaper republishes an explanation filed from Moscow in the Russian Federation.
In the brave new digital world, it is not unusual to find a Russian website recycling a very intriguing piece from a progressive British newspaper that exposes the dirty hands of the United States in the so called “Orange Revolution.
Lyndon LaRouche is a very mysterious figure in US politics. A former Marxist, LaRouche has been accused by the US left of being a racist, fascist right wing anti-Semitic demagogue who has collaborated with the US intelligence community in past decades in fighting progressives in that country. His network of organizations and publications such as the New Federalist and the Economic Intelligence Review is a mish mash of meticulously researched fact based analyses on many issues around the world from the Congo to Osama bin Laden while being peppered with the most outlandish conspiracy theories very akin to notions of the Illuminati and a secret cabal controlling the world from some dark lairs in the recesses of the US corporate beast. That is whenever I log on to their site I take the precaution of having a large salt shaker beside me. Having said that, it is very interesting to see their take
on the current developments in the Ukraine.
One should realize that these Western financed, NGO led coups did NOT begin with Ukraine.
There is another Georgia-the Republic in Eastern Europe as opposed to the state in the southern part of the USA.
Last year a well executed coup toppled a sovereign government, as you can see from this November 2003 Counterpunch piece as well as this story found at this link. From the same source you will also find this story filed in MARCH this year that blew the whistle, months in advance of the creeping coup currently taking place in the Ukraine.
The mastermind of these NGO nefarious plots AGAINST democracy in Eastern Europe is
George Soros
the controversial Hungarian born billionaire speculator who bankrolls not only the Open Society network of NGOs but controls the “respected” Human Rights Watch watch dog.
These series of articles rapidly unmasks the devious tycoon:
Start here...
Before proceeding to this link...
and reading on at this Canadian site...
and wrapping with this brilliant profile in the UK’s New Statesman that is augmented by a final commentary by a Montreal based investigative anti-globalization web site.
4.0.What Prospects Can Be Gleaned from Kisauni By the Disorganized Kenyan Left?
The NARC fiasco and debacle in Kisauni where we just saw one faction of the ruling bloc fight a murderous dirty tricks campaign to ENSURE that ITS OWN OFFICIAL CANDIDATE GOES DOWN TO DUBIOUS DEFEAT is just the latest OUTRAGE of the series of assaults on democracy perpetrated by these KANU clones and clowns. Mwai Kibaki, whose own first name eerily echoes his predecessor’s surname, is faithfully fuataring the bloody nyayos of Moi and Kenyatta. He is following very faithfully the bloody footprints of electoral fraud, voter intimidation, ballot box tampering, media disinformation and violent terror tactics to shut down threats to the status quo- especially when this threat comes, like it did with Odinga and Mboya in the sixties, Kariuki in the seventies and Ouko in the nineties from within the cabinet itself.
I will not be surprised if there is an actual assassination attempt against Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka in the coming few months. I mean, we saw hired NAK goons try to kill people like Kamotho (no big hero to me) and other LDP leaders whose only crime was to show up in Mombasa to campaign for the democratically elected NARC candidate for crying out loud!
From my Canadian vantage point, I see the LDP being the immediate mainstream beneficiaries of the naked rigging of the Kisauni by-election. Of course Ananias Mwaboza will be catapulted to the cabinet, perhaps at the expense of Najib Balala or some other LDP minister. But that move, if it happens, will betray the kind of empty headed, shallow short term, management by crisis mindset of the NAK political thugs. Their LDP factional cousins have a better grasp on where the wananchi are at, but like I cautioned recently, they too are headed for a political cul de sac UNLESS THEY TRANSFORM THEMSELVES INTO A PROPER INDEPENDENT, IDEOLOGICALLY BASED, PATRIOTIC and ANTI-IMPERIALIST FORMATION.
Is this within the realm of possibility given the comprador bourgeois stratum base of LDP stalwarts like Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi, Najib Balala and other people?
My comrade and friend
Mwandawiro Mghanga could find himself sucked into another political quagmire, as happened in his last outings with Safina and FORD People. Ndugu Mwandawiro, you are the one who taught some of us the following Marxist dictum:
“Without a Revolutionary Program, There Can Be No Revolutionary Movement.. This is a well understood Marxist-Leninist tenet that has been echoed and amplified by comrades like
Amilcar Cabral of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde
Joe Slovo of the South African Communist Party
Le Duan, one of the main leaders of the Vietnamese Revolution(along with such historical pillars like 
Ho Chi Minh
and
Vo Nguyen Giap among others
And I remember those days at Kamiti during our political education classes how Mwandawiro emphasized that revolutionary ideas only become a REVOLUTIONARY FORCE ONCE THEY ARE EMBRACED BY THE WANANCHI.
To my mind, as long as the LDP remains stuck in the mud of mainstream neo-colonial comprador power struggles within the NARC rotten elite, it will be very difficult to differentiate itself from its shameless, tribally based NAK cousin.
To retain its credibility and deepen its growing mass clout, the LDP must start opening itself up to critically minded Kenyans with a definite Left wing political orientation. As I say this I know that there are several people like yourself as well as others who were part of Mwakenya, the December 12 Movement, UWAKE and other anti-imperialist forces within the present core of the LDP leadership( not necessarily the high profile politicians we read about every single day) but that is not enough ndugu. You saw that being Secretary General of both Safina and FORD People DID NOT prevent Richard Leakey from jumping in bed with Daniel arap Moi or Simeon Nyachae from doing the same thing with Mwai Kibaki. The LDP is infamous for its horse trading and nothing prevents a disappointing opportunistic rapprochement between say Raila Odinga and Kiraitu Murungi from undercutting any progressive inclinations on the part of the Mwandawiros and other SOCIALISTS in the LDP fold.
That is why I place far more hope in the emergence of an INDEPENDENT, explicitly anti-imperialist, in fact SOCIALIST oriented NATIONAL political party on the Kenyan scene. I have spoken extensively about this concept in previous digital essays so I will not add a comma to any of those interventions…
Peace.
I am out….
Onyango Oloo
Montreal
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