Friday, 25 April 2008

Kenya vs Zimbabwe

Mwai Kibaki showed the world how to mount a civilian coup when he refused to concede defeat, despite exit polls showing that Raila Odinga was heading for a landslide victory. How Mwai Kibaki can expect the world to believe he won the presidential vote when his party only garnered 1 in 5 parliamentary seats beggars belief!! But as his belligerent counterpart in Zimbabwe has shown, world opinion counts for very little, especially if it's the opinion of the US and Britain. Funnily enough, the US showed indecent haste in congratulating Kibaki on his re-election but had to do an embarrassing U-turn when evidence of massive vote tallying irregularities came to light. Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe is stalling the announcement of the electoral results while he ponders his next move.

Kibaki effectively stole the election, but is rewarded by remaining president while his party gets all the plum positions in the engorged cabinet. Why Kenya with a population of between 30-35 million needs a president, a vice president, a prime minister, 2 deputy prime ministers and 40 ministers, while Ethiopia, with a population of 70 million has a 13 ministerial cabinet is a clear sign of the lack of statesmanship that so bedevils Kenyan politics today.

I'm sure all the current internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kenya, would gladly give up the right to exercise their democratic vote if it meant that they would not be forced to flee their homes, with just the clothes on their backs.

****UPDATE****
Well this shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone, but there doesn't seem to enough swill for the piggies to get their fill. They intend to use money which was supposed to help resettle the IDPs to pay for their cars, office furnishings etc. - what was that about serving the people?!!

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