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Kenya (Not about lions)
Elki
get busyModerator, ClubPA mod
get busyModerator, ClubPA mod
This will only end well if Kibaki steps down. Odinga is not the sort of man who'll go down quietly.THE electoral commission of Kenya declared a winner in the country's bitterly fought presidential election on Sunday December 30th: the sitting president, Mwai Kibaki, was returned to power. The voting three days earlier had been impressively orderly and peaceful, raising hopes of a brighter future for Kenyan democracy. But the tallying process was a much darker story, with heavy suspicion of vote rigging and subsequent fears that serious violence could strike the country.
No one disputes that the opposition Orange Democratic Movement swept aside government parties in the parliamentary vote. Most of the ministers in the cabinet of Mr Kibaki lost their seats to Oranges, including the vice-president, foreign minister, and defence minister, and a number of previously unassailable and wealthy MPs.
And yet the same disgruntled voters apparently gave 76-year-old Mr Kibaki strong support in the presidential vote. The final tally, according to the electoral commission, handed Mr Kibaki 4.58m voters to 4.35m for the firebrand opposition candidate, Raila Odinga. Mr Odinga's supporters had earlier stated that he had won, suggesting a lead of some 500,000 votes. He claimed that the electoral commission was “being forced to declare wrong results†and called on its leaders to resign rather than plunge the country into chaos. The consequence of failing to recognise a “fair resultâ€, he threatened, could be civil war.
Polls had indicated that the presidential election was going to be close. It was the manner in which Mr Kibaki crept up on Mr Odinga's solid lead that raised suspicions. Why, for instance, were votes from the president's loyal Kikuyu highlands of central Kenya held back to the end of the counting? Why had so many returning officers there gone missing, along with their results? Mr Kibaki, himself a Kikuyu, was expected to have overwhelming support from his kinsmen, but 98% looked excessive.
The head of a European Union team of observers, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, promptly spoke about deep misgivings concerning the counting process. Diplomats in Nairobi, the capital, pointed the finger at the Kikuyu old guard, men who had feared that they would lose their fortunes if Mr Odinga had made it into State House. Even if Mr Kibaki's cronies are innocent of charges of vote rigging, he will have no national mandate: outside of the Kikuyu lands, Mr Kibaki was soundly beaten across the country, including in Nairobi.
There is a real chance of bloodletting between the Kikuyu, an ethnic group that has dominated politics and business in the decades since independence, and the Luo, led by Mr Odinga, who have been politically and economically marginalised. The fear now is that violence could erupt on a large scale in Luo strongholds in Nairobi and across western Kenya.
There are plenty of younger Kenyans, including those in business, who are desperate to avoid tribal polarisation. The immediate concern is whether Kenya's security forces can hold the line between rioters from opposing sides, most of them unemployed men armed with machetes and clubs, screaming death threats. Sporadic violence killed several people on Saturday. Looters stripped out shops in the western city of Kisumu. Mr Kibaki, who was immediately sworn in as president on Sunday, retakes office in the least auspicious of circumstances.
The brief, and extremely simplified candidates compare/contrast.
Odinga:
Rich, outsider, pro-devolution, Luo (somewhat relevant: friend of Obama, who is the son of a Luo).
Political history: Involved in a failed coup attempt in 1982 against Moi. Helped defeat Moi in the 2002 elections while supporting Kibaki's coalition. Now running against Kibaki with Moi's support.
Kibaki:
Rich, insider, anti-devolution, Kikuyu.
Political history: A minister since 1965, and 4 inglorious years as president where he didn't create the jobs he promised to, or tackle corruption.
The vague thing that I think should happen: Kibaki should be pressured into accepting whatever the monitors recommend. I'm not sure if a recount if feasible or not at this point.
Discuss!
Elki on
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Tangential question, but what exactly do you devolution under the candidate descriptions? Typo for evolution, or something I'm just not catching?
Though I will admit last I heard it was still in the intimidation and driving out minorities in a region stage, not the killing stage. Not that those two are far apart at all.
Between the holidays, work, and personal matters, the time I do have to devote to checking on the news I split between the fallout from Bhutto's assassination and national politics to follow the Iowa primary that's happening tomorrow. My apologies for not being sufficiently worldly to have checked the one headline out of dozens related to Kenya more recently than a couple weeks ago.
Now, do you have anything of substance to add, or would you like to act superior a bit longer?
No, seriously. If you're going to post in a thread about a current event, please at least spend five minutes scanning the headlines first. Otherwise you just look stupid and hamstring the thread from going anywhere more interesting than 'huuuuur-Africa lolz'.
Cry. Evolution is only an issue in the US, because half of you are insane.
Devolution means handing centralised government powers down to a regional level - it's a claim for local governance at its most benign, and a precursor for independence / secession at the most extreme. Not sure which is the case here.
I know it's USUALLY only a big issue in the US, but a lot of African churches (and unless I'm having a temporary brain fart Kenya's in particular) are notorious for being extremely conservative and making even our stupid religious crap look relatively benign.
I can't say I'd ever heard devolution used like that though, so thanks for the heads up.
I see, fair enough, but that's only really an issue for internal Anglican doctrinal debates between African dioceses and the UK hierarchy, it's not an issue within Kenya.
Fair enough
We could go on about exactly how I was wrong and why it seemed a good idea at the time, but we'll leave there since we're already pretty far tangentially.
This seems like a sensible suggestion, since I was under the impression the real cause of the violence is the fractured tribal relations that typify nearly every other African nation. Apparently Kenya has a larger middle class than many of its contemporaries but clearly the historic divisions between the various peoples the national borders tried to end have remained, simmering under the surface. Should consideration be made towards going beyond simple devolution and introducing new sovereign territories for certain regions or should every effort be made to try and maintain the current make-up of African states?
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
They just interviewed by the local news. Crying pretty hard because he just found out a friend of his was killed in the riots.
This blows.
Instability jumps from country to country because the tribes are located in more than one state.
So breaking up Kenya isn't just breaking up Kenya.
And like Cat says, they've been too successful for too long to be talking about breaking up just yet.
Well, yeah, nationalism is an ugly thing that transcends borders, that's kind of the problem.
Although I guess yeah, if they've been stable this long, that weighs pretty heavily...
They're pretty much interchangeable in the respects that I care to talk about.
Okay, well, that definition. That's what I'm talking about.
If you say so.
I'd draw a distinction between nation states and stateless transnational nations in a discussion about political stability, but if you aren't interested in looking at things through that lens so be it.
Apparently many African politicians like to manipulate old tribal allegiances and pay those at the bottom of society to works as thugs to perpetuate a sense of anger and discontent among the larger populace.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
It's hard to say whether they like doing it. It works. People who do it sweep aside those that don't, natural selection style.
Perhaps, though once you've rid yourself of your political opponents you are then awoken to the reality that your instigated anarchy has prevented any kind of economic or social development as well as being presented with a whole new can of worms.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
For those who haven't checked Wikipedia, Kenya is 45% Protestant, 40% Catholic, and 10% Muslim.
And the IRA wasn't blowing stuff up because it was fighting the injustices of poverty but because it opposed being governed by a foreign power.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
Ireland was mostly suffering from (British) Imperialism, but British rule was also hurting their monetary statuses somewhat.
Empirical observation would not find this to be a very strong deterent.
And Scalfin, yeah British rule wasn't exactly creating a flourishing Irish economy but Home Rule was the primary motivator in their actions.
Oh and while I agree Islamophobes need to be rebuked at any opportunity, I doubt you'll find many in this thread.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
That's actually why I specified Imperialism.
Post-imperial Africa in general.
If Goldman and Sachs can feel confident enough to include Nigeria in it's "Next Eleven" then clearly theirs is an example we need to look at.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
Anyway things are still godawful over there, especially in the rural areas, but parts of this made me laugh, and now I think I might be going to hell.
But it's hard to argue with economist's dicta for progress.
Oh and yes, you are a terrible person but I hear the queue for hell these days is a bitch.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.