Kumekucha Exclusive: Why Has ODM's Salim Lone Fled Kenya?Guest post by Wanjiku of Msa
Kenyans have often been accused of having short political memories. As we and the rest of the world anxiously await the magic word from Kofi Anan, one man that seems to be slowly slipping from our collective memories is Samuel Kivuitu – arguably the chief architect of this whole fiasco. He was on Television recently and he had close to an hour to display his characteristic careless speak and sick humour.
As far as Kivuitu is concerned, Kenyans are spending too much time complaining and yet it was only the presidential tallying that went wrong. His question was, ‘what fraction is presidential tallying compared to the whole electioneering process’? Somebody please answer that. Was Kivuitu implying that Kenyans should applaud the commission for giving them Councilors and MPs? Without a clear president?
He went on to say that he was just as shocked as anyone else when the police stormed KICC and whisked him away from the room. He completely did not see that coming. His best explanation was that there were people so close to his table shouting and haggling and maybe the police feared that something bad would happen to him. We can all guess who those people were. He did not know either that there was only one media house when he was announcing the results. He saw lots of microphones and since he did not carry out a roll call of the media houses, he had no way of knowing that there was only the state broadcaster present. After all all microphones look alike. For all he knew the whole world was watching.
Asked about the commissioners who later emerged to cast doubt on the election results, he replied that they had all agreed to go and announce the results and that one of them actually oversaw the tallying. He invited those calling for the disbandment of the commission to go ahead and do so and replace the commissioners with Bishops and Archbishops since they can do a better job at ECK than him who has no role in the church. Why would anyone want to disband the ECK? They only announced results. They did not kill anyone! He did however feel some personal responsibility for the initial flare up of chaos but when they started taking a more organized shape, he freed himself of any blame.
In conclusion he insisted that the one who was announced as president is the one who won but there could be mistakes, the results were 100% right but they could be wrong and that he will not resign from ECK because of the flawed election. He will only resign after better systems are installed to ensure proper management of future elections. Systems like computerization of the voting process and improved communication of results among others.
NTV: Bottom line; Did Kibaki win the elections?
Kivuitu: That is a very difficult question.
