FALSE NARRATIVES DISTORTING OUR POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Politics,of course is about perception, and how we modify or outright change those perceptions,not with Sunday school means but lies,propaganda,misleading advertising,subliminal TV messages and doctored opinion polls are all widely accepted stratagems in the bastion of democracy-the West.
Here in the 3rd world we haven't graduated to such subtleties and are at a simpler stage of the art of perception management. Repetetive buzz words 'Mt.Kenya mafia/kunajisi katiba (raping the constitution)/unfair resource allocation/ethnic based favouritism' are those easily understood by undereducated have nots looking for an explanation into their plight. Especially when your opponent is widely accepted by all to have grown the economy by over 7%,such simple incendiary agitprop of the type used by American feminazi types always finds eager listeners.
Look back at the Grand Regency hotel saga of 2008. The minister involved, Amos Kimunya found a private buyer willing to pay 1.6 billion shillings and was promptly lynched by the media,parliament and the hordes of professional idlers aka,civil society who all accused him of accepting inducements to sell at a throw away price and mortgaging the future of the nations's children. What was neglected in the whole circus was that that price for a running 5 star establishment unrefurbished  in its 15 years that allowed it to continue as a going concern was higher than expected as valuers later declared. Also MPs were looking for revenge ever since he waged a media war for them to pay tax.

He was cleared in an official inquiry and one of his principal tormentors ,James Orengo,with a taste for 6000$ suits as his bosses inside man recently revealed, apologised publicly but still Kimunya's name in our notoriously unethical press is  prefaced with the 'Grand Regency Hotel Scandal,' moniker.
But this press penchant for supporting false narratives was best observed in the December 2007 election. They enthusiastically allowed criminal incitement and were complicit in what turned out to be a failed Odinga led civilian coup. While they all lambasted Kibaki as an election thief the truth was 180 degrees in the opposite direction;it wasn't even a long or complicated story. Odinga rigged massively! The rigging ranged from deceased voters casting their votes, polling station staff colluding with agents to mark ballot papers of those who did not turn up to vote and illiterate people being guided to vote for a certain presidential candidate, among others forms of irregularities.

It is alleged PNU agents were chased away from polling stations while others failed to report at the stations for fear of their lives.
According to the Kriegler Report, six constituencies recorded more than 94 per cent voter turn out during the elections.
Bondo, the Prime Minister’s home and Kisumu Rural constituencies had a record 102 per cent voter turn out. Karachuonyo had 94 per cent, Rangwe 93, Nyatike 95 and Mbita 95 per cent. I personally will not be purchasing your book…
Mr Benjamin Tolo who was a PNU point man in the province and a parliamentary candidate for Kisumu Town East said election irregularities were rampant in the area.

 http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?id=2000008868&cid=4&ttl=In%20Kisumu,%20dead%20voters%20%E2%80%98showed%20up%E2%80%99%20at%20the%20polls&articleID=2000008868

As this happened tame NGOs shrieked to the heavens about stolen elections without an iota of proof. Here's one of them Hassan Omar,former head of the KNCHR who spent his term writing turgid inflammatory pieces like this:

 February 13, 2011: “Globally, the dominant view on President Kibaki could be that he represents part of the cacophony of obsolete despotic African leaders who must pave way for better governance. Not only is he viewed as having stolen an election in 2007, but also ‘stole’ hope and an opportunity for a genuine national rebirth by undermining the spirit of 2002 popular revolt. How do you explain a character that has been to some of the world’s finest schools and toured the globe coming across as an unrepentant ethnic bigot?”

 http://hardtalkkenya.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/hassan-omar-hassan-and-pathological-hatred/
 Now he's running for Mombasa senator on Odinga's ODM party.

Prof. Paul Collier,a British development expert was one of the few who saw through to the heart of the matter saying,

He gives very short shrift to the fashionable cause of self-determination or special status for minorities espoused by the Kosovo

Albanians, the Luo in Kenya or the rebels in Darfur. He casts Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister, and not President Kibaki as

the provocateur in the country's last elections (in contrast to most foreign media covering the story).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/21/wars-guns-votes-paul-collier
And still to this day,Odinga is innocent and Kibaki the thief. I've held focus groups and one on one interviews with Kibaki's PNU insiders and haven't found any trace of rigging. Dear reader,feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and provide proof,but the evidence must be neutral. Don't shove school exercise books from Kibera filled with clumsy numbers in crayon ,purporting them to be election tallies favouring Odinga in my inbox-that will not do;neither will submissions from Friends of Raila Association be accepted.
To me the most obscene untruth is about the PEV. Kalenjins admitted killing,raping,looting and burning but 'explain' it as a reaction to Kibaki's 'rigging,' though months before the elections many were all over cyberforums gleefully spilling their heinous designs. I specifically remember one forumer on mashada who bragged of thousands of Kalenjin warriors ready in Molo in early October 2007. There are obvious intertwined interests keeping these narratives at play .
The thing is these orthodox histories as written by 'court historians,'poison the entire political framework. Like a seed planted in bad ground nothing good will fruit. The sun has risen and the truth must out.