Contents:
• Introduction
• The man Odinga
• The elements of the coup: 1)violence
• The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt.
• The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Three pronged attack.
• The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Lessons From Russia.
• The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Intimitation:the promise to turn Kenya into an Ivory Coast if Odinga was not granted the presidency.
• The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Controlling the Media
• The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Fooling the International Observers
• Investigative Reporters And Odinga
• Future winners and losers
• The final death toll
• Debunking some myths on Kenya
• Black-on-black violence, Odinga style, and What you can do.


Introduction
It's probably best not to fall for a false sense of security and relief after the signing of an agreement between the Kenya Government and the opposition. Try not to forget that this has all along been Odinga's second coup attempt, and the final objective of forcefully replacing the Government has not yet been acheived. The US presidential elections are coming up, and if Barrack Obama wins, it's needless to say that Odinga may be motivated to finish off what he started. He's probably just buying as much time as he can in the face of the determined resistance on the part of the Government that was probably unexpected.

In the light of the post election violence the Kenyan press has a self imposed gag on some topics of discussion. The idea is probably noble, but it does leave people speculating on to exactly what is going on, who is telling the truth, etc. It leaves the burden on the people to make up their minds on what is happening.

So I've taken it upon myself to write what many people may already suspect, but do not have the forum to do so in the context of the media in Kenya. People would like to know how Odinga may be going about in having a second attempt at a coup, and him hoping that it does not end in failure as his first attempt.

You are probably wondering why some people came to the conclusion that the violence has been merely a smoke screen for a second coup attempt? Well, you are no doubt familiar with the expression, "If it walks like a duck, and if it quacks like a duck, chances are pretty good that it is a duck."
Does the post-election violence "walk like a duck(a coup attempt)?" The objective of a coup attempt is to forcefully replace the government in control. Masquarading behind a supposedly rigged election and create violence would qualify as a means to overthrowing the government in power.
Does the post-election violence "quack like a duck(display the signs that accompany a coup attempt)?" The only other time in Kenya's post independence history that violence has killed so many people was during Odinga's first coup attempt, a little under 5 years into then President Daniel Arap Moi's rule. Moi openly campaigned against Odinga, citing the fact that Odinga has shown no remorse for the 1500 people(some reports indicate 2000) who died during that first coup attempt. Now, once again, just 5 years into President Kibaki's rule, the very same person, Raila Odinga, appears to be a protagonist, as in his words, "people fighting over the misjustices of a rigged election".

Two different presidents, just 5 years into their rule, the same very person being a protagonist in the highest level of violence in post-independent Kenya's history, does appear to be too much of a mere coincidence. The first round of violence was a coup attempt. Could the second round of violence also be a coup attempt? Considering these unique similarities, I would like to suggest so. I would like to suggest that Odinga learned very well from his failures in his first coup attempt, that of using junior officers to play a leading role, and this time round is using "officers more senior".

In this letter, I would like to suggest the elements behind Odinga's second coup attempt, and how he managed to dupe not only the international press, but even the European Union observers about a supposed rigged count, that the presidential election was rigged out of his favor, and that the violence that ensured was vent up years of pent up anger.

This is a fairly long letter, and so I have broken it into sections with sub headings. That way it should be easier for you to go back to a section to read it again if you so wish.


Why Odinga has been so successful so far at duping the International community is because he is taking advantage of the stereo-type Africa that the world thinks of when it is thinking of Kenya-civil wars, famine, drought, etc. Had the international community been more knowledgeable of Kenya as a country, then Odinga might not have got away so long with some of his current crimes.

As for the possibility of considering that what is happening in Kenya is really a coup attempt, if we are to believe the press, there are still many scientists who do not believe that the black race has sufficiently evolved from its origins as an ape to the point of having enough brain capacity to scheme a sophisticated coup. As such, whereas a caucasian pop-star going to court will be analyzed in the press for what he or she is wearing to guess what the person is thinking,
no such consideration is given to the possibility of black scheming coup-plotters. Apparently only Odinga's version appears logical. Or perhaps the violence is good for the newspaper profits.


For that reason, at the end of this letter, I've included an appendix that debunks some of the
stereo type images that the west may have of Kenya.


The man Odinga
To begin with, the perhaps the reader in the west needs to understand a bit of the man Odinga himself. In the west, people complain the politicians lie, and are like chameleons. Unfortunately, even by Western/African standards, Odinga is rather extreme. Let's take two examples of his character.

Let's first start with the fact that at some point he effectively became part of the opposition in the previous parliament. The Government of Kenya, after going about with its economic reforms,
established that the economy had grown from a negative grwoth rate at the time it took over to an impressive rate of over 6%. Immediately the government announced this, Odinga said that the government was lying, that the economy could not have grown more than 1%, and it was proof that the government was the most corrupt in the world, and not willing to solve people's problems. He would also make statements such as the Nairobi Stock Exchange being full of "drug money".

It so happens that international investors and financial organizations began to take notice of the economic reforms and gains Kenya was making. Organizations such at Fitch, as well as Standard and Poor, did their own assement and gave Kenya a credit rating of B+, up from a C.
A short while later, the same Odinga who said that the government was lying about its figures started saying that the 6% growth rate was proof that the Kenya government was the most corrupt in the world. He went on to say that at independence the growth rate of the Kenya economy was higher than that of South Korea, currently considered within the top ten performing economies in the world. The low 6% growth rate was due to the corrupt people in the Kenya government, "all from one tribe", not allowing new ideas, asking for bribes and preventing the economic growth rate from growing faster.

That is the same Odinga who just a short while before had claimed that the Government was lying about 6% growth rate.

That platform of the Kenya government being the most corrupt in the world based on 6% growth rate is in fact the platform he campaigned on for the just-held general election, and for which the western press credited him as having economic policies similar to those of Kibaki. This is one example of a perceived image in the west of Odinga that is not fairly accurate, but was based on speeches he made just prior to going into the election period.

Unfortunately many International news houses reporting on Odinga's so-called policies did not bother to check the statistics of the tribal-break-down of civil servants in Kenya maintained by the Government. Understandably, this is because of the stereo-type thinking of the standard African-Government, and the fact that an existing African government even maintains statistics(read, understands practical Math) might have been considered above the capacity of a black African's mind. That is why we keep reading stories of all government positions be taken by a favored tribe.

That is one of the reasons at the end of this letter I have an appendix to debunk a few stereo type images of the people of Kenya.

Then let's take another example of Odinga's character. Kenyan's have the unfortunate task of having to put up with so called professional mourners-politicians who go to funerals to talk politics rather than grief with the family that has lost a loved one. Unfortunately Odinga has taken professional mourning to a rather distasteful level.

A previous cabinet minister in President Kibaki's administration, Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi (married to a Norwegian medical doctor, Ling Kituyi, and blessed with four children), lost his mother. During a funeral arrangement get-together, when Dr. Kituyi was not home, Raila made his professional mourning appearance. The press reported that he spoke to the people gathered and made some politcal statements about a conversation that supposedly took place between him and Dr. Kituyi.

A few days later, the press run another story, with this time Dr. Kituyi denying that the conversation ever took place. And that was not all. The press reported, as according to Dr. Kituyi, when he asked Raila Odinga why he (Odinga) said those things, Odinga simply laughed into Dr. Kituyi's face and walked off.

Leaving aside the aspect of professional mourning, in itself rather distasteful, would you even feel comfortable calling someone your friend if at, of all places, a funeral of one of your family members, and having no respect for the dead, the person makes up a story of an event that never took place for cheap political gain? If you knew he had said this, would you feel comfortable voting for such a person? If a person is capable of making up a story at a funeral,
would you consider it impossible that he makes up a story of being rigged out of the elections,
considering that the potential for personal gain in the presidency is higher than the few minutes of glory after his cooked-up professional-mourning story?

Are you begining to see how you've been duped into believing his story tha he was rigged out?

Obviously it will take the reader who has not been following the news in Kenya in the last few years time to understand the nature of Odinga, and his character. But hopefully this article will give the reader new to the politics of Kenya a more critical insight into the currently one-sided story of Odinga being rigged out of the presidency.

So now let's look at the elements of Odinga's coup.

The elements of the coup: 1)violence

The first element is the most obvious. Odinga's taste for violence is well known. The international press has been reporting about the violence just right after the just-concluded elections. What they don't seem to be reporting is that, during party nominations a few weeks before the elections, the Kenya press expressed its worry about the then upcoming elections, principally because of the violence that rocked Odinga's strong holds.

A few weeks before the post-general-election violence, parts of Nairobi and virtually all Kisumu were ablaze, and police had to be sent in. Several people died or were injured during or after the party nominations for Odinga's party of choice. People from Odinga's tribe who were not happy with the situation and chose to run on other parties found themselves being "politely" ask to publicly renounce their candidatures when Odinga, himself in person, visited their campaign
rallies and "asked" them to step down.

A former minister in the Government from Odinga's own tribe, Rafael Tuju, a couple of years back charged that people from Odinga's tribe who did not pay bribes to the Odinga family were violently forced not to participate in the election process. He has stated that he too had to pay money to the Odinga family to gain nomination for the 2002 general elections. Given the number of people the Kenyan press reported who were not considered Odinga's first choice, who won nominations before confronting violence and then being replaced, this claim cannot just be discounted.

The Kenya government itself says that it was violently denied entry into the counting halls in Odinga's strongholds in the just concluded elections. In fact, it is the number one reason that the Government has refused to accept a claim of a win by Odinga, because it feels that it was violently rigged off several ballots.

Violence is one of Odinga's trademarks. When in 2002 Odinga supposedly "supported" Kibaki on a joint effort against then President Moi, in the "unified party" nominations, (note the apostrophes) despite claims by people from Kibaki's party that they won the joint elections,
they were violently beaten and the nomination certificates given to people from Odinga's own party. That was one way of Odinga ensuring that he could keep Kibaki in check-
by having legally elected parliamentarians capable of opposing Kibaki in the "unified" front.
He did so with gusto and literally opposed every project that the government proposed. He did his best on several occassions to bring the government down.

Interestingly, in the weeks preceeding the just concluded elections, the Kenyan press carried stories that warned the public that someone was purchasing large quanties of machetes from supermarkets. At that time no one associated it with the then upcoming elections. A tribal gang from Kibaki's own tribe, known as the Mungiki, that had been terrorizing its fellow tribe's-people had been largely subdued in the latter part of 2007, but at first there were fears that it was re-emerging. But given the public scrutiny on them, they were not considered organized enough to have bought machetes in such large quantities without being noticed.

It is only after the elections and violence broke out that people started putting a connection between the purchase of machetes and the post-election violence. With a very high degree of probabilty, there is a good chance that it is only a matter of time before it is proven that it was Odinga and his fellow accomplices in organizing the violence who were involved in the purchasing of those machetes.

Ironically, it appears that it's the same west that has skewed Odinga's version of events as being correct that has taken the lead in finding the source of machetes, and reporting stories of private armies being prepared for more violence.

The people of Kenya are peaceful people and have never seen such violence in their post independent History, EXCEPT for during Odinga's first coup attempt.As such, it is asking too much of both Kenyans and the people who know Kenya to expect one to believe that the violence was, as in Odinga's words, "a spontaneous reaction to injustices against the people of a rigged election."

If some rumours circulating on the Internet are to be believed, it may be that Odinga is becoming even more brazen in his use of violence to meet his objectives. There are debates going on in Kenyan Internet forums hypothesizing the cause of politician Mugabe Were's assassination. One version of events states that Mugabe Were, a politician elected into Odinga's camp, a husband of two wives, the first being an Italian and the second wife a Kikuyu, had become disillussioned by the post-election violence. He apparently informed his fellow tribe's man Musalia Mudavida, one of the top 5 officials of Odinga's party, of his intention to defect the party. Apparently Mudavadi gave him the blessings to leave the party.

The next thing that people read in the newspapers is that Mugabe Were was dead, and robbery could not have been the motive for his killing. No money or valuables were taken. Just a bullet wound through each eye. It was, the hypothesis goes, a violent warning to members of Odinga's party that defection would not be tolerated. In the meantime, Odinga has publicly accussed the government of being behind Mugabe Were's death, an accusation the government denies. If true, the violence-related death of Mugabe Were fits the pattern of violence practised on those who dare oppose Odinga in his own tribe, but going on to a much bolder level.

The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt.
For the next element of Odinga's coup, let's consider his past coup attempt. If someone were to carry out a second coup attempt, they would most probably learn from the mistakes of a previous attempt. And Odinga is no different. On his first coup attempt, against the advise of Milton Obote, a previous president of Uganda, Odinga used junior army officers to be the protagonists. Milton Obote warned him that no coup in Africa had ever succeeded when the main players were junior army officers. Milton Obote was right. Within a few days the coup attempt collapsed. When he was arrested and detained, Odinga denied having had played any role. But in his recently released biography, he confirmed what the Government had been saying for several years-
that he had played a major role in the planning of the coup attempt.

The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Three pronged attack.
If Odinga is to have learnt from his past mistakes, we assume that he would use "senior" rather than "junior" officers. In addition to using violence to get the numbers he requires to legally challenge the government, it appears that also had a three-pronged attack.

i)(Control sources of information to the public)Quickly count all the votes in his strongholds to create an illusion of an insurmountable vote count and ask the government to concede defeat
ii)Intimidation and the threat of violence-the threat to turn Kenya into an Ivory Coast if the government did not concede defeat
iii)Protests about the supposed rigging that took place.

We will start with the third one.

The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Lessons From Russia.
In the hours right after the elections, it appears that Odinga may have been hoping to repeat the success of the protests in the former soviet union that led to the collapse of the super power in 1990. For three days, the people of the Soviet Union protested attempts by the communist committee to replace Gorbachev as the chairman of the communist committee. The protests directly led to the collapse of the attempted coup, and eventually to the collapse of the Soviet Union. As it turns out, the Government of Kenya might have suspected this to be the ploy, and banned all protest rallies planned by Odinga.

The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Intimitation:the promise to turn kenya into an Ivory Coast if Odinga was not granted the presidency.
For the weeks preceeding the general elections, Odinga visited several countries claiming that there was evidence that the Kenya government was attempting to rig the elections. He talked of pre-filled ballots, which the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya scoffed for lack of proof. It appears that this may have been the begining of an effort to intimidate the Government by fear-the rest of the world was against the current Kenya Government. Later he became bolder, and the fact that Odinga was threatening the Government that if it did not concede defeat there would be violence should have been an indicator that Odinga had planned violence all along.
Then Odinga went one step further. During the counting of the ballots, he announced his party's version of results, not verified by the Electoral Commission of Kenya, and promised violence if the Electoral Commission of Kenya announced a different set of results. The rest is history.
Within a few minutes of the Electoral Commission announcing its own results, with military precision, hundreds of people were killed or displaced.

It's fairly ironic that Odinga, the same person who asked for help from international governments into pressurizing the Kenya government to re-appoint Mr Kivuitu as the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya to so suddenly turn round and claim that Kivuitu was in cahoots with the Government. Odinga claimed that the commissioners whose tenures had run out were being replaced by people from one tribe, proof of the Governments planning to rig the elections. On this one, the Law Society of Kenya, headed by someone from Odinga's tribe, said that Odinga got the facts wrong. The newly appointed commssioners represented communities from all parts of Kenya, and in the chairman's words paraphrased, were fully competent lawyers of more than 10 years working experience. The only thing that the Law Society did not like was the fact that their tenures were running out so close to the elections, and that it was necessary to have someone with experience in previous elections to make for a smooth change over.

Someone not from Odinga's own tribe may probably have said that is was the only way a lawyer from Odinga's tribe and worth his dignity could politely criticize Odinga without losing his life. Odinga's party is now asking for the Electoral Commision to be replaced. Something just doesn't fit right in this picture.

The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Controlling the Media
Moving to the first one, it appears that in the initial hours after the election the most important aspect of Odinga's second coup attempt was controlling the way that information was relayed to the public. It is here that Odinga put very well the lessons from his first failed coup attempt.

For those following the election counting, does anyone remember that Nation Newspapers had announced Odinga was well ahead by several hundred thousand votes at one point, practically a million votes, and then backtracked later on its figures which whittled down to a lead of just a few thousand? The official reason given was that there was mixture of votes being announced from certain regions.

On the surface, that is an acceptable reason. Never-the-less, a little after Nation newspapers had announced the massive lead by its count, without any authorization from the Electoral Commission of Kenya, and using Nation's results that gave him a lead of almost 1 million votes, Odinga went on to declare himself the winner of the elections and the new president of Kenya.

By far and large, Nation newspapers a respectable newspaper and generally informs its readers when their is a publication error. For those of you who are not aware, Nation newspapers is by far the largest news group in East and Central Africa, having not only newspaper distribution
as its core business, but TV and radio stations as well spread all over East and Central Africa.
In recent years it has been one of the best performers on the Nairobi Stock Exchange, returning
profits in mostly the double and triple digit percentages. It has very professional reporting staff, and one reading its business columns may be forgiven for thinking that they were reading a story from one of the G8 economies in an African setting.

Let's go back to the "mistake" in reporting. Given, as we have seen, that one of Odinga's strategies was to use intimidation through an insurmountable vote count as means to an end, could that "mistake" have been more than a "mistake"? Remember, Odinga learnt well from his first failed coup attempt. Could it be that this time round he infiltrated the national press, having his moles to announce their "results" to the whole world and make the Electoral commission of Kenya look not credible when they announced another set of results?

Remember, Nation Newspapers is the "senior army officer" in news reporting in Kenya. The Kenya law was ammended to allow the press into the counting halls in an attempt to reduce the cases of rigging. Nation Newspapers had the right to report what it deemed to be accurate provisional results.

So what is wrong with the above scenario? Why be suspicious over the Nation Newspapers "mistake"? Why should we be suspicious of something amiss at such a professional organization as Nation newspapers? After all, if say a respected news house such as CNN or BBC says that it
observered the counting in a US or UK government elections, and by its count so-and-so won, would you have serious doubts or simply wait for official announcement of the results in agreement?

Well, as we have mentioned, the Kenya law allows for the media to be present in the counting halls in an effort to reduce rigging. It so does happen that at the same point in time that Nation Newspapers was announcing its results, another media house, which by law too was allowed into the counting hall, the Standard Newspapers group, the news group considered the most fanatical supporter of Odinga and harshest critic of the Kenya Government, was giving another set of results, with, surprise surprise, Kibaki in the lead by a significant margin!!!

For those of you reading this who have been following the Kenya news and know about Standard Newspapers reputation, you were probably just as surprised as many other people when Standard Newspapers had Kibaki in the lead at the same point in time that Odinga declared himself the president of Kenya.

It might be here that some elements of Odinga's plot started to falter, but also led to events that show Odinga's shrewdness in coup plotting. The vast difference in the results reported by the two newspapers may have raised a red flag with some returning officers and commissioners of the Electoral commission of Kenya. The Kenya Government had been reporting massive rigging
in Odinga's perceived strongholds and were offering a different set of counts from those offered by Odinga's party, the Government's own results showing Kibaki to be in the overall lead. Standard Newspapers, of all newspapers, was providing a set of results that tended to match the pattern of those provided by the Government of Kenya. Kenya Times, another local newspaper, also had Kibaki in the lead at the time of Odinga's self-proclaimation to presidency.

Obviously, though smaller than Nation Newspapers, the two media outlets could not be ignored. The last straw may have come a bit before or just after Nation newspapers announced its "mistake". It is probable that the officers in charge within the Electoral Commission then decided not to take any chances. Because the Kenya law allows the media into the counting halls, there was nothing they could do about what the reporters were reporting. They let the media participate in one set of counting. But once that was done, they may have decided to repeat the count themselves to accurately record the results and ensure that no rigging was occurring.

It is here of course, Odinga, as ever shrewd with a plan B, started claiming that the Government was delaying giving out the results because it was rigging the results to be announced and modifying the already announced counts. He continued with his threats to turn Kenya into an Ivory Coast if he was not given the presidency.

The elements of the coup: 2)Lessons from the first failed coup attempt-Fooling the International Observers
Before we see how Odinga managed to fool the observers from the European Union the the presidential election was flawed, let's go back into the Nation Newspapers "mistake" and the Standard newspapers provisional results.

Only Nation Newspapers is qualified to say who was delegated responsibility and how the reporting was done, and how it eventually discovered its "mistake". It may be that Odinga planted moles directly in Nation Newspapers news group. Recent reports on the Internet suggest that all is not well at Nation Newspapers with Odinga's party claiming that Nation Newspapers is offering biased coverage. This may be a clue that after the "mistake", Nation Newspapers did its internal investigation, discovered something amiss, and let the moles go-vis-a-vis, fired them.

Or it may be that on the day of elections, directly between, the TV announcer and ballot counting returning officer, Odinga planted several of his men to shout his party's doctored version of the results. Very similar to the way that Kosgey interrupting Kivuitu's reading out of the results and told Kivuitu that his signed returns that he was holding in his hands were different from the ones Kivuitu was reading out. With enough people to shout and confuse a camera man and journalist
(which woudld not be considered abnormal in the atmosphere of a vote counting hall), and the "proof" of an "officially signed" document, a journalist would report something different from what was read out.

With no shouting or confusion tactics at the Standard newspapers and Kenya Times news desks, and so the journalists accurately reporting what they heard, this could also explain the big discrepancies between what Nation Newspapers was announcing and what Standard newspaper was announcing.

You might be wondering how it was that that Odinga did not include Standard Newspapers in his second coup plot plans. As people who follow the news in Kenya know, Standard Newspapers is fanatical backer of Raila Odinga. US Ambassedor to Kenya Michael Ranneberger once commented before the elections that the Kenyan press should show maturity and avoid biases in what would be perceived to be campaigning for individuals. Some reading those
reports may have taken it as alluding to Standard Newspaers and were a gentle form of chastising Standard newspapers.

In that backdrop, Odinga may have assumed in his coup plot planning that Standard newspapers would, fanatically faithful as always, only announce results that showed him to be in the lead.

Another possibility is that, learning from the mistakes of his first failed coup attempt, using junior officers instead of senior officers to be protagonists of the coup attempt, he may have considered that, relative to Nation newspapers, Standard Newspapers was too junior to be taken seriously by the public. Any results announced by Standard would probably be given less weighting than those announced by Nation Newspapers.

It appears that the fanatical journalists at Standard Newspapers still consider NationNewspapers as king for all their fanatism. They happily reported verified ballots accurately, doing an excellent honest job of reporting, with the full knowledge that Nation Newspapers was announcing their preferred candidate(Odinga) as winning by an insurmountable margin. They probably did not bother to double check that some of the results they were reporting for individual constituencies did not match those reported by Nation Newspapers.

And just how did Odinga manage to fool the observers that Kibaki was rigging the elections. For me, though I loathe the violence that Odinga has fanned after the elections, I'll have to admit that this shows a stroke of genius in coup planning. He knew that there was no way that he could win in Kibaki's strongholds. And he was well aware that the politicians within the Kibaki strong holds were calling for voters to turn out in large numbers. A large voter turnout would greatly diminiss his chances of winning the election.And being Kibaki's strong holds, it would not be as easy use violence without significant resistance.

So what was his solution to finding a way to rig? Would there be any better way to do so than using reverse psycology to create an atmosphere of negative suspicion towards the government
and have its votes disqualified?

Odinga is no fool, and his ability to incorporate human psycology as an element of his coup planning might separate him and put into a higher caliber of coup plotting. The modern world is becoming a place where democracy is increasingly becoming the way of standard way of changing government (even countries of the former super power, the Soviet Union, namely Russia, use democracy as a system of Government.) There is a fairly good chance that military strategists of the future world governments will study Raila Odinga and his methods as a way of replacing governments with people favorable to their ideals.

Reverse psycology? "What is that?" you're probably asking. Odinga has common sense. He knew that no matter how much he tried, he would most likely never get much support in Kibaki's strongholds, no matter how much he campaigned. Winning the presidency is just as delightful to any people as winning the World Cup. Asking the people from Kibaki's tribe to vote for Odinga can be compared to the German Government sending out a large Government delegation to Brazil to get the people of Brazil to cheer for Germany in a World Cup soccer final to be played between Germany and Brazil. (By the way, for those who don't know, it appears that several years after having studied engineering in Communist East Germany, Odinga has not forgotten the language, and was reported to have addressed German journalists in their language.)

Then, also remember, Odinga is well aware that he has a reputation for violence. In 2002 even Kibaki's own party men who won the nominations got physically beat up and their nomination certificates given to people in Odinga's party. In the 2007 party nominations, any one who dared stand against his preferred candidates either died or got beat up thoroughly. Virtually all Kisumu and parts of Nairobi were ablaze for a few days after the party nomination exercise. No one in his tribal land dare challenge him lest he or she face undesirable consequences. During the main general elections even the Government of Kenya officials were shown no respect in Odinga's perceived strongholds. Anyone trying to enter the counting halls was physically manhandled.

So Odinga knew very well that even in Kibaki's strongholds, everyone would be expecting his traditional physical confrontation, with the possiblity of Odinga's men trying to steal ballots to reduce Kibaki's count.

Reverse psychology works like this, you DON'T STEAL the votes-you plant the votes! Planting evidence is the oldest trick in the book the a human rights activist will tell you police use to arrest people. Planting ballots can be used to discredit the government in the eyes of observers and thus create suspicion and discredit the Government. That would be the easiest way to trash the Governments efforts of inviting 30,000 foreign observers to monitor the election as a cover for rigging. So far, the International press is still reporting that there was evidence of the presidential election being seriously flawed, with the main suspect of the rigging being the Government itself.

Where did the ballots comes from to plant evidence. Was Odinga in cahoots with foreign governments or organizations to print forged ballots? Could be. But in practice, it would not be necessary to have gone to that extent. There was a far easier way.

A few general statements by the Electoral Commission of Kenya on the statistics of voter pattern may provide clues to another probable way that Odinga used. Those who have been following the news are by now aware that in the concluded election, according to the Electoral Commission of Kenya, a significantly higher number of people cast ballots for the presidential election than did for the parliamentary seats being contested. That is, for example, 7 people casting ballots for the parliamentary election and 12 people for the presidential election.

Such a statement should arouse one's curiosity and raise one's suspicion levels. Each and every person who chooses to vote is given BOTH a parliamentary election ballot AND a presidential election ballot. Ideally then, allowing for spoiled ballots, there should have been an approximately equal number of presidential ballots as their are parliamentary seat ballots. But this was not the case. So what could have happened?

Remember that the Government officials were not allowed into the counting rooms in many strongholds. This is a scenario that most likely resulted in a source of planted ballots. Odinga had no use for the parliamentary ballots cast for Kibaki. Those probably got tossed away, reducing the parliamentary vote turn-out recorded.

However, with a high voter turnout in Kibaki's strong-holds, and some extra topping of course from the ballots transported from Odinga's strong holds to Kibaki's strongholds, and voila!
The vote counts would exceed the registered voter count. And ALL Kibaki's votes in his strongholds would be disqualified!!! Does rigging get any easier?

There are probably several ways to have delivered the votes to Kibaki's strongholds. For example, using reverse psycology, because people are expecting you to steal votes, you-carrying a ballot box-can get close to a vehicle carrying ballots under the cover of the darkness in the evening hours after voting. Then you can draw attention by loudly dropping the box and coughing. You conveniently make your planned escape when the security guards start shouting at you. The agenst associated with Kibaki are relieved to "retrieve" a ballot box full Kibaki's ballots that someone was "attempting to steal".

Another possible method of making use of reverse psycology would be to involve men's natural social and psychological attitudes towards women. Most African men would not associate a gentle looking lady as being capable of carrying a box full of ballots to rig. However, with the men or police with their backs to the ladies for a significant period of time due to commotion,
even the most-feeble-looking yet prettiest looking lady, if not strong enough to lift a ballot box, could quickly DRAG a ballot box from under a table to be closer to rest of the ballot boxes. If one of the more observant police officers, when he faces ladies again, is observant enough to notice that there appears to be an extra ballot box, a quick peep into the box show virtually all the ballots to be Kibaki's, thus reducing the police-man's suspicion, since the commotion was expected to be Odinga's men physically imposing their votes into Kibaki's stronghold. Planting votes never got any easier.

Does this sound like a fantansy scenario that only occurs in thrillers and detective stories? Could all this have been possible? Is there anyone reading this article who followed the vote counting process for Starehe constituency as it was reported by the press? Are there any of you former international observers reading this article who were chased out of the counting hall when commotion broke out when Bishop Wanjiru claimed that the Government was doing improper things?

For those of you who are reading this for the first time, during the counting of ballots for the Starehe constituency, Bishop Wanjiru, allied to Raila Odinga, cried foul loudly, resulting in a commotion in which everyone-international observers, party agents,etc, was chased out of the counting room with the sound of gun shots being fired into the air. Only the counting officers,
who happened to be female as according to the press, remained in the room. No one knows what happened during the commotion and the police had their backs to the counting officers. It's needless to say whose party won that constituency seat. In this case Odinga may have used reversal psycology to win a parliamentary seat and at the same time do a dress rehearsal and fine tune points for a repeat of the same.But this time to plant votes in Kibaki's favor in Kibaki's strong holds in the presidential election race.

It's also instructive to note that Police Commssioner Ali complained that even some members of his police force, as well as party agents, appeared to be involved as part of a massive rigging operation that moved ballot boxes around. Kivuitu talked of agents rushing off with boxes. These are scenarios that could describe the movement of presidential ballots from one constituency to another.

In this case we used an example to show how reverse pscology of women who couldn't hurt a fly could have been used to plant votes to Odinga's advantage. In Kibaki's strong holds, that is, where he was the clear expected winner by a significant percentage, similar and other tactics could have been used to plant votes, skewing the recorded turnout to over 100%, which is in fact what happened in one constituency.

Prior to the elections, the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, Mr Kivuitu, had requested that the printer of the United Kingdom of the 14.2 million presidential and an equal number of parliamentary and civic ballots be serialized. If for the 2007 General Election no record was made of which serial numbers were used at a constituency, future elections should do so. This way, an attempt to move ballots between constituencies would be quickly detected. This is akin to banks giving armed robbers serialized bills, which are then used to trace robbers movements once they are outside the bank.

An alternative would be to have the presidential, parliamentary and civic candidates represented on the same single ballot paper.

Investigative Reporters And Odinga
Had Odinga not turned to violence as a potential trumpcard, his use of reverse pyscology may have been simply a laughable incidence that might in fact have earned him a degree of respect as a strategizer. As a matter of fact, no one may have even bothered to investigate whether the election was fraudulently carried out or not-fradulent here meaning attempting to understand Odinga's rigging schemes. As it is, not only are people trying to understand why Kenya, a country that has never experience this level of violence except for last time Odinga attempted to overthrow the government, Odinga invited the attention of some international press correspondents who are turning up disturbing stories on Odinga's character and plans for violence.

Before touching that, it is also useful to consider the possibility that the Government may at some point during the counting exercise picked onto Odinga's reverse psychology tricks.

We have seen that the Electoral Commission may have become suspicious after Nation Newpapers announced its "mistake". And we have seen how it should have been possible for ballots in Kibaki's favor to have been ferried from Odinga's strong holds to Kibaki's own strong holds in the hope of discrediting the Government with high voter turnouts-that actually exceeded the registered voters for each constituency. As a consequence, the results from one constituency were actually cancelled-the voter turnout was 115%. In another constituency it was close to 99%.

Indeed the Government may have realized at that point that one of Odinga's plans, knowing full well he would not win in Kibaki's strong holds, had attempted to also get Kibaki's votes disqualified there as well. In other words, Odinga was trying as much as possible to get as many of Kibaki's votes discredited to allow Odinga's presidential count to remain higher than that of Kibaki's. Another reason why he wanted votes to be quickly counted in all areas-with a quick count there's no time to check for discrepancies.

When the Government realized what was happening, there are two things that could have happened. One, the Government became extra vigilant and attempts to deliver extra ballots were thwarted. Second, the Government may have simply played along, feeling justified since the ballots were those they were not allowed to count in Odinga's strongholds, but being careful to make sure that enough ballot boxes were rejected to prevent a voter-turnout
exceeding the registered voter turnout.

The Government playing along and just allowing enough votes to count is somewhat uncharacteristic of Kibaki. However, as we will speculate later, there may have been reasons, other than merely winning the Kenya presidential election, that may have led, we wll speculate,Kibaki allowing this to happen.

As mentioned earlier, Odinga's attempt to tell "his story" to the International press may have led to an unwanted(on Odinga's part) invitation to investigate the facts. Those who have been following the International news on the violence in Kenya-not something difficult when it the was the Internet's top international news item for a few weeks along with the violence in Pakistan-may have come across some fairly distrubing stories about pre-planned violence and Odinga's character.

Some of note are stories covering the US Presidential candidate nominations that have also started investigating Odinga's links to Barrack Obama, whose late father was from Kenya and from the same tribe as Odinga. There are reports of Odinga having made a pact with Moslems in Kenya, a country that is officially over 80% Christian, a vow to turn Kenya into a Moslem, strict Sharia-law following, country, and has promised to exterminate "all the worshippers of the cross"-a reference to Christians, as Christians use the cross to symbolize the cross that Jesus died on when he was crucified.

Some reports go further to indicate that, although officially Anglican, Odinga converted to being a moslem at some stage in his life.

Odinga may have made his promise to the moslem leaders on a whim. Remember that we mentioned that he made up a story at the funeral arrangements of the mother of Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi? In a tight election battle, as was the case in Kenya, politicians, especially those whose consciences are seared enough to practice professional mourning, might say anything to gain votes. Political analysts reported that the opinion polls were too close to predict the winner, and that a minority group such as the Moslems could have been a deciding factor in which way the election victory would go.

Still, promising to "exterminate the worshippers of the cross(read: 80% of the population)" is a fairly strong statement to make in any country, not only Kenya. Other than the fact that over 80% of the population is Christian, Kenya is essentially a democratic nation, having had elections every 5 years since it's independence from Britain in 1963, mostly as a single party state, but now having reverted to a multiparty state.

Before the live media coverage blackout after the post-election violence, polls had indicated that over 83% of Kenyans polled felt that they had unhindered freedom of expression. How was Odinga going to go about, then, keeping his promise. If he were to have won the elections as a result of the Moslems skewing the outcome in his favor in a close contest, he would be obligated to repay his promise lest he lose another election. How was he planning on doing that?

As it turns out, it appears that the Moslem vote was evenly divided, and the disputed outcomes were from Kibaki's strongholds-whose results we believe Odinga tried to get disqualified by unorthodox means. Very possibly the Moslems who voted for Kibaki were appreciative of the infrastructure he developed there during his first term as president-asphalt roads in their areas that had never been built since the Independence of Kenya, the opening of an International airport being another, and the assistance in the export of a lot of their produce to high-paying foreign markets such as the Middle-East.

Never-the-less, there is a distinct possibility that Kibaki received intelligence reports on some to the things that Odinga was saying and memorundums of understandings with radical Moslems suspected to have links to Al Quaeda. And so when he realized that Odinga was trying to rig him out, he proactively took measures to make sure that Odinga was not given a chance to
figure out the best way to keep his promise to the radical Moslems. Essentially he decided to become a sacrificial lamb in the interest of the 80% of Kenyans who are Christian at the risk of being labelled a rigger of the elections. This could explain some of the references with religious tendencies he has been reported making in the press, such as "God will show us the way out the problem."

Future winners and losers
Quite interestingly, an important personality who may be thankful in the future to Kibaki for not allowing Odinga to ascend to presidency may be none other than William Ruto, Odinga's
rapport in the Kalenjin community. The press has on occassion reported that William Ruto says that he is a born-again Christian.

The majority of the Kalenjin community are Christian, having a significant number of members of their community belonging to the African Inland Church and the Pentecostal Assemblies of Kenya. Had Odinga ascended to presidency, it is not difficult to ima

Nice analysis.

My take: Odinga is still not president. The only way his lies can be brought to the fore is exposure during peaceful times when everyone is level-headed. I say we give him the Prime Minister's position and allow peace to flourish. The we will know who Raila is and his role in the past violence will be exposed for all to see.

Hello all;

It appears that maybe my posting had more characters than permited by the web hosting company-some pages seem to have been cut off.

You can view the full article here


http://elements.of.odingas.second.coup.googlepages.com

John Smith

John Smith Kariuki, Raila is not the enemy here. Irrespective of all the stories above (Iwonder what your sources are). Its about time every tribes in Kenya did a self examination to find out what our contributions to the situation in Kenya. I'm not a Kikuyu but I'm married to one,( do not let my name fool you, and unlike you I do not want to hide my real identity), and I know that one fact, as long as we Kikuyus blame everyone else and not ourselves for some of the misfortunes that have befallen us, the we are missing the point. We are the ones without land yet some members of our tribe like Uhuru Kenyatta owns 7% of Rift Valley and 15% of Coast, explain to me how this is Raila's fault? Why we we so happy to call Raila a warrior when he supported Kibaki before? If he is such a monster, a well known fact as potrayed by your diatribe above, why did we sing songs in his praise then? Its a fact that we are not to blame for everything we have been accused of, but what do we blame ourselves for. We can use this column to demonise everyone we do not agree with, but it does not change the fact we have displaced people who need to go back to their homes and get back to their lives. If we believe he has such immense powers, nstead of calling Raila names, should we be using him to help us resettle the displaced these people back to their land?

The time will come for the truth to be known, Joyce. Just be prepared in case it wont be to your liking.

Assuming John Smith is right,
Then Raila is succeeding in:
*Fooling the international community
*Controling the Media

Among other things

My Question is, why is he able to do so?
*What stake does Raila own in Media compared to his competitors?
*Why is he able to convince the international community?
*What resrouces does Raila have to carry out/ or hire effective PR consultants?
*Does Raila have a monopoly of Education, Brillaince etc?

When you think about these questions it is easier to agree with Lady Otieno. Maybe something is wrong in Kibaki's camp. Lets be serious, Raila is not God and he is not all powerful.

The Question I will ask is what Joyce asked:
"WHAT IS OUR ROLE IN ALL THIS?"
It is time to be honest dears!

my people, i will give you some clues to your questions. here goes:

1) does the west have intention of forever being the bosses and sole exploiters of africa wealth at the detriment of africa and africans?

2) how would they(the west) sustain or have sustained this system of exploitation of africa great wealth? the answer to this is through their direct or indirect nomination of african leaders e.g. through assasinations,nowdays through election riggin, or use their influence to influence the appointing of corrupt, ignorant, tribalist, incompetent african leaders. mobutu, moi, odinga's are very good examples. note the plural odinga's. the west latest trick of installing their prefered puppets leaders like odm leaders to the rest of africa is denouncing of election results whenever their prefered candidate/s lose. this explain the latest unfolding all over the world where every election expecially in africa and else where are being discredited no matter how fair they are. e.g. zimbabwe, namibia, kenya and nigeria elections.

any way to cut my long story short the following is how the west are able to influence election in africa and else where they have an interest:

1) the use of uncountable corrupt western and local election observers.

2) the use of propaganda and their firm control of the world media.

3) unaccountable biased media world-wide. remember the pen is mightier than the sword?

4) willing power hungry evil tribalist, incompetent corrupt leaders like odm ones who are concious or unconcious dupes of the west interest.

5) the use of secret ballots/votes during elections should be abandoned. i believe every valid voters vote should be an open vote and contain some tracing element should conflict occur. the voters should receive a serialised reciept at the ballot point indicating their vote/candidate choice, the voter must sign both the receipt and the ballot paper(vote) in the presence of legal officers at the ballot room before casting their vote. all casted votes and copies of the voter signed receipt should safely stored and be published or accessable if a need arise.

the current world-wide accepted secret ballot should be done away with, all election related violence should be severy punished and never tolerated at any cost. civic education should be rolled out on the right of every individuals to vote for any type of leader they want without harrasment or the use of any kind of violence been directed to them(voters).

kenya need to show the world how to go about this problem in kenya future elections by banning secret voting and opting for open voting since its more transparent and riggin proff.

6) the barring of non registered voters from voting. voters should use national id for voting and not voters cards. this new voting system am proposing is extremely very cost effective, efficient, tranparent, all inclusive and very easy to manage.

the western voting system adopted by kenya is corrupt, full of flows(loop holes) and is outdated. a new system like the one am proposing here need to be considered asp. kenya computers programmers and system analyst and designers need to design this system am proposing here and partent. this system need not be complicated and extremely costly like the present incompetent one in place.

this is basically it for now. am in a hurry but am sure its more robust compared to the present corrupt, un-transparent incompetent world-wide accepted voting systems from the west which has brought too many tears to kenya and the world.

7) The ignoring of election violence perpetraters and riggers by the western powers as long as they are the prefered candidates of the western powers interest.

remember the election systems are normally bought from the west? the problem affecting kenya post election is largely due to the corrupt, outdated, non transparent voting system adopted from the west which corrupt policians like odm ones and their western masters have taken advantage of its loopholes.

Kenya need to lead the world in this issue by designing a new election system that is transparent, all inclusive, accountable and rigg proof. designing such a system should be a piece of cake or a walk in the park for any competent system analyst and designer.

i hope people here see that the wazungus don't necessary have all the answers to our problem. the wazungus who are the only noice-makers UNLIKE AFRICAN UNION LEADERS need to shut up their beak since they are deeply involved here.

about kikwete and mwinyi, they should first repent about their abbeting of corruption in their country. was it mwinyi gava that killed alot of tanzanians at election time during his reign of tanzania. remember tanzanians refugees had to flee to kenya in their boats some boats full of tanzanian post election violence refugees was shot and capsized at the sea at by tanzania government?

now war criminal and election biggest rigger mr. bush visit president kikwete with instruction on how kenya government should solve the crisis. kikwete was just a parrot for bush. he's now the darling of the west. no sane leader should wellcome bush to his country with a red carpet unless he is A sellout of humanity. shame on tanzanians for not protesting the bush visit there. infact bush speech was like a warning to the world not to travel to tanzania because its full of malaria giving mosquitoes. the west leaders will never like africa. never. africans should stop being naive about this issue.

as for kenyans they are under the siege of evil corrupt politicians who are now armed with tribalist illitrates militia from their villages. real kenyans have no problems with each other and will never have just like the rest of africa and the world. just like everybody else we are too civilised for such acts. the people who blocked roads, looted, burned and conducted ethnic cleansing were these evil tribalist iditic politicians private army militias who were trained for such acts. the hate campaigns before and during campaign times plus the tribalist radios stations aggravated this situation.

this evil tribalist corrupt politicians is what ailing africa and kenya. they need to be dealt with in order to stop their evil agenda but am sure that touching them is equivalent to touching the western powers as kenyan has now seen and is still witnessing.

something need to done against this sellout, primitive tribalist politicians afflicting kenya wellbeing and africa at large.

all africa leaders should cease being nationalist and become pan-africanists asp like me.

odm leaders are not even nationalist. punk majimboist. infact they are anti-nationalist. such leaders are the worst enemy of a united africa. these stooges of the west are being used to prevent africa from raising up. remember kibaki and museveni are real pan africans while kikwete and odm isnt? its no wonder these people have problems with kibaki and museveni. to prove this point further, would you wake a sleeping dog or giant? one must be insane to do that. wazungu will never like the idea of a progressive waken africa since itawauma like africa is currently doing. remember africa no longer look west but east nowdays? and people wonder why the west is anti President Kibaki? its because of his great vision for kenya and also his because of his great competence. the west has never liked such COMPETENT UNCORRUPT african leaders like him. example's are Lumumba and Nkuruma.

remember africa backwardness is perpetrated by poor leadership up to now? remember africa most evil and corrupt leaders were appointed with the help of the west? e.g. moi and mobutu. while the west killed all africa competent leaders.

i hope now you see how the west always con us.

the west has never liked development concious leaders like President Kibaki. infact in the past they would simply just assasinate such leaders and replace them with their own puppets. remember Nkuruma, lumumba and others.

the west just changed their tactits. washindwe.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Beste,

Hey Wamax
Is this a threat to joyce or just quote.To Joyce, I'm with you my sister, I'm also a kikuyu married to Kalenjin.Well, over the past months, I have struggled with terrible feelings. I'm torn between so many things. I have always loved my matrimonial home and I will always love them no matter what.When I got married, They welcomed me. They are actually very warm and welcoming people.Usually very polite unless provoked.I felt a very strong sense of belonging there.I think it's time we forget about the past and for sure take time and reflect on things.for the sake of our children,we sure need to come together.After all, all of us are milking the stolen cow together.Kibaki holding the horn while Raila doing the milking.

quote:

Originally posted by wamax:
The time will come for the truth to be known, Joyce. Just be prepared in case it wont be to your liking.

Will people stop with this stolen cow maneno already. Quite frankly, it's getting to be quite embarrassing. See the way the rule of law works is that not everyone who goes claiming something is necessarily the rightful owner. If we operated by that rule we'd be in a constant state of anarchy.

Quite obviously that mad man Raila and his disciples have little concept of how a modern state functions. Half of his supporters are out there commandeering other peoples property by force. Last I heard they'd taken over 200 housing units. The other faction is busy burning and killing. Kenyans however are an unsophisticated lot, that's why running around aimlessly in the streets of Nairobi can cost your life if someone shouts Thief, thief.

Anyway since the person who claims the cow was stolen, refused to seek redress from the courts and opted to settle out of court, the question is wholly academic anyway. The settlement was heavily influenced by the unleashed violence and the governments inability to control it as well as humongous international pressure. The government basically had a gun on its head while they were signing that deal and Baba Jimmy being the pragmatic leader he is, opted to sign it rather than let ordinary folks suffer for a period of 5 years in the name of pride.

quote:

Originally posted by muthoni08:
Hey Wamax
Is this a threat to joyce or just quote.

quote:

Originally posted by wamax:
The time will come for the truth to be known, Joyce. Just be prepared in case it wont be to your liking.

I never threaten anyone in this world. Principle. Any way, how do I follow the threat? Send a Mamlluki.