If Kenyans were in Ghanaian voters’ shoes, the country would now be on fire

Picture this. It is 11 am at a polling centre in Nairobi, and voting has not begun because ballot papers have not been delivered.

The electoral commission is relying on the police and military to supply the voting materials, but the police have not laid on enough lorries.

When voters walk into the polling station, several are turned away because, although they can see their names on the register, the BVR kits simply fail to “know” them. Reports come in from some parts of the country that no voting is going on because the BVR kits have failed to work altogether.

A besieged electoral commission decides to carry voting over to a second day in some areas. But it neglects to inform political parties. Two days after the election, the results have still not been released. 

Then on the third day, the electoral commission chairman shows up on TV and announces that the incumbent has won by the narrowest of margins.

All this happened in Ghana, the poster child for African democracy. Just imagine if even half of those irregularities had happened in Kenya.

As Michael Jackson once sang, there would be blood on the dance floor. Many Kenyans don’t realise that Kenya has perhaps one of the best frameworks for holding elections in Africa.

Our neighbours in Tanzania still use district commissioners to manage elections, and the electoral commissioners are unilaterally appointed by the President.

In much of West Africa, elections are essentially run by the government.

Kenyan elections are completely different. We stumbled badly in 2007, it is true.

But that does not take anything away from the fact that we had very clean elections in 2002 and excellently managed referendums by the Kivuitu commission in 2005 and by Issack Hassan’s team in 2010.

When people discuss the March General Election in forums such as Facebook, one senses a deep sense of scepticism about whether the election will be competently managed.

I don’t think that such scepticism is supported by much evidence. And this approach to issues by many Kenyans – their almost total lack of faith in their institutions – can be dangerous.

My villagers say that a man who wakes up every morning fearing that he will be bitten by a snake will eventually be bitten.

There is a case to be made that one of the best aspects of the new Constitution are the prescriptions on how to manage an election.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission is reasonably secure from manipulation by the State.

The process of appointing its commissioners is among the best in the world.

And, most importantly, when you interview its senior officials, you get the sense of Kenyans who are working very hard to put in place a system that will reasonably guarantee a clean election.

You do not get the sense of people who are out to do a political hatchet job and burn the country down again. But there are still lessons we can take from Ghana.

The most important is the maturity of their voters and the pride many Ghanaians and statesmen such as John Kuffuor have in ensuring their nation remains at peace.

The many problems that attended their latest election show that it’s not really true that their electoral system is the best around. In fact, on March 5 Kenya could reclaim that title.

But that won’t happen if we persist in being very negative and despondent about the IEBC’s chances of pulling off a good election. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

And even if one or two machines fail on March 4, let’s not slaughter one another in protest.

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