by simon
Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2012 02:16 AM
Kenya has seen leaders that disregard MoUs and go for second terms, leaders, who reportedly order killing of potential opponents, leaders who change the consititution to to the benefit of their own without a shade of shame but Believe it or not, there are countries in Africa that have experienced worse than this.
For example, Ivory Coast: Prior to the October 1995 presidential election, in a move that was viewed as being intended to prevent Ouattara's potential candidacy, the National Assembly of Côte d'Ivoire approved an electoral code which barred candidates if either of their parents were of a foreign nationality. What was that? This barred Outtara from running for the Top post in both 1995 and 2000.
Then come 2005, the sitting president, Laurent Gbagbo, postponed the presidential elections fisrt to 2006 then 2008 then 2010. Stealing an election is occasionally expected, but postponing it?!! That is going overboard.
Following 2010s elections, Ouattara, now eligible to run since they could not really prove the country of birth of his parents, was announced the victor after a second round with a 54% win. The Electoral Commission of Côte d'Ivoire however missed the deadline for declaring the results as papers were snatched from an official who was about to read the results on live TV. Gbagbo nullified the results of the major Outtara regions claiming there was cheating, despite both local and foreign observers agreeing it was a clean election. This gave Gbagbo a 51% win but put the country into war.
Gbabo was arrested by Outtara's forces in April 2011 and is due for trial by the ICC for crimes against humanity. Reportedly he ordered massacres that saw big numbers in Outtara's mainly Muslim strongholds in the north killed.
Outtara is the current president.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of improvement required for us Kenyans. I know all good citizens know them all already so to just point them out for those in political offices, now and in future, they are: