I have never rigged an election before and I always wondered how THEY did it. But considering the regularity with which it is done or alleged to be done, there must be a body of dedicated riggers out there ready to do it at the drop of the hat. Still, as with all dark arts, if you have not been initiated you remain in the dark. However, I am now liberated from my ignorance and can rig with the best of them if called into service. Thanks to Honourable (sic) Mwai Kibaki, alleged President of Kenya, I now know the ABC of rigging. If you want to be initiated into the rigging fraternity all you need to do is to walk the few easy steps of the recent Kenya elections. Before I take you through the rigging manual, let us first give praise where it is due because when it comes to sheer chutzpah Mr. Kibaki has no equal. The man’s professorially mild manner and his slightly stooped 76 year old body hide steely nerves that will shame an armed robber. Who else could steal an election live and in the full public glare without the need for replay? Who could have wiped out his opponent’s one million vote lead in the space of one night while all good people slept? Who, indeed could cause all communications equipment in Central and parts of Eastern Kenya to stop working for a 12 hour period? Let us give praise to a master of the science, for he is good indeed. The Kenya elections of 2007 were always going to be the bitterest in the East African country’s history. Essentially, it had the rawness of a family feud about who stole the sacred heirloom: gutsy, no-holds-barred, bloodstained, intense and visceral. It was between two allies who had fallen out over perceived wrongs and egotistic hurts masquerading as elevated principles. Kenya’s first President, Jomo Kenyatta was succeeded by Arap Moi, who had taken over as vice president from Odinga Oginga (Double O) after the latter clashed with Jomo over ideology. Double O’s Son, Raila took to opposition politics like a duck to water and suffered for that under Arap Moi, who ran a very corrupt government. Raila and another former Kenyatta loyalist now turned opposition figure, Mwai Kibaki, joined forces and won the 2002 elections. Almost immediately after taking power Kibaki reneged on promises he had made to his comrades. Raila and his faction broke away and challenged Kibaki. The date for the elections was December 27, 2007 and Kenya’s expected it to cement the country’s reputation as one of Africa’s most stable democracies. On the appointed day, people went to the polls in record numbers because the whole country seemed to agree that something monumental was shifting. Throughout the build up period, opinion polls had given Raila solid double figure leads. Kenyan polls are done by organisations with more nous and credibility than was the case with recent polling in Ghana. Exit polls indicated that Mr. Odinga’s predicted lead was holding and some people expected it to be even more emphatic. The count at the end of the first day was a disaster for the President. With votes from 91 constituencies counted, Raila’s Orange Democratic Movement had 72 seats compared with 19 for Kibaki’s Party of National Unity. In the presidential race, Mr. Kibaki was losing by almost a million votes. Time to call on Plan B. The vote count and reports of results started slowing and then stopped. The government allegedly pressed the Election Commission to hold back the results from Mr. Kibaki’s Central province stronghold. Now, this is straight from the rigging manual. By the time the results were deliberately delayed, Mr. Odinga had won six of the eight provinces declared and eventually had 110 parliamentary seats to the government’s 40. However, by the time the results from Mr. Kibaki’s strongholds came in he had won 97 percent of the votes in those areas and overtaken the lead held by Raila Odinga by a small margin. Of course, there many types of rigging available to the astute rigger. There is the old Soviet-bloc or North Korea model in which only the leader contests against nobody and secures 99.999 percent of the vote. Then there is the Obasanjo/Yar Adua script which goes for broke and leaves no box intact in the target areas. It works on the principle that if you leave no trace there is no evidence. The Museveni version relies on straightforward intimidation and the most favoured antic is to arrest your main rival and put him before a military court on any charge. Africa presents a harvest of rigging techniques to choose from but the Kibaki model is preferable because it is neat and straightforward. The main trick he employed was to lure his opponents into the false belief that he was a democrat by allowing his opponents tally to soar in the early counting. By the close of the first day Mr. Odinga was leading with a margin that reflected his lead in the opinion polls. Possibly he went to bed a contented man and closed both eyes as Mr. Kibaki hoped he would. Meanwhile, the President’s men were operating in the shadows and doing their own arithmetic. They made sure not to alert the opposition to what was coming so when it did, it took some time for the shock to cool. Documentary evidence alleged by ODM to be provided by the Electoral Commissioner shows that in the KICC Constituency alone 251,481 votes were added to Mr. Kibaki’s votes while 27,282 were deducted from Mr. Odinga’s tally. This pattern was repeated throughout the President’s stronghold which created the impression that he had won. The Kenyan election debacle is not only a national disgrace; it is also a tragedy for democracy in Africa. Instead of a peaceful transition from one government to another, it has again created an impression that Africans are incapable of this simple devise. Instead of improving governance in his country and Africa, Mr. Kibaki had other ideas. He is now an illegitimate President heading an illegal government. However, in doing what he has done, Mr. Kibaki calculated that Africa and the international community would play the usual softly-softly card and then call for peace and reconciliation while the main issue is ignored. With time, everyone gets bored and he carries on regardless. He almost got away with it. The United Sates, with its one-dimensional view of the world, endorsed Mr. Kibaki immediately after he got himself “sworn in”. But no-one is fooled now. The 76 year old Mr. Kibaki’s rigging has led to the death of nearly 1000 people, mostly youths, women and children. Thousands of Kenyan’s have been displaced and living in “refugee camps” in their own country. Ethnic tensions are threatening the long term peace of the country. And all this is happening because a 76 year old man wants to be in power against the wishes of his people. The time has come for the world to say a big no to Mwai Kibaki and his henchmen and no language is too strong to express the disgust that we all must feel. Words are not enough. If he does not take the opportunity being offered by President Kufuor’s mediation, the international community must impose the stiffest sanctions against the “President” and his “government”. gapenteng@hotmail.com (Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng) Journalist & Media Consultant Please copy all correspondence to gapenteng2003@yahoo.co.uk