The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Charles Onyango-Obbo
13 December 2007
column
The Kenyan election campaigns are similar to others in Africa in two respects. First, every presidential candidate is taking a tough line against corruption and saying he's the best man to clean out the rot if elected.
And, second, the opposition is accusing the government of a plan to rig the polls.
Well, let us see what fighting corruption really means. In North Korea, recently the boss of a state-owned factor was found guilty of abuse of office and corruption. His crime was to have used the company phone to make international calls. Guess what the punishment was? He was executed. The candidate who can live up to those standards should step forward. I would like to propose that the rest should drop out of the race for him.
It's important to bear in mind that corruption is, of course, not a uniquely African problem. It can take very unusual form in some countries. In Thailand recently, an Air Force pilot got into a search and rescue helicopter and went on a most unusual mission; to go and pick mushrooms for his mother!
Now to allegations of a plot to steal the vote. A few days ago in Russia, President Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party won the elections in what was widely viewed as a flawed poll. United Russia party won 61 per cent of the vote, with its nearest rival, the Communist Party, securing only 11.5 per cent.
I don't think any party, even President Kibaki's election vehicle, the Party of National Unity (PNU) or Raila Odinga's high-opinion-poll-rated ODM, expects to win 61 per cent in an election where there are 108 parties fighting over 210 parliamentary seats. Among other reasons, to get the kind of majority United Russia won in Kenya, the government would have needed to do some of the things Putin's government did.
To qualify to send an MP to Parliament, the law was changed to require a party to win at least 7 per cent of the registered vote --- up from 5 per cent. The law also barred parties from forming coalitions before the election to prevent them from clearing the 7 per cent hurdle. The parties were also required to show evidence that they had 50,000 registered and paid up members. If the Kibaki government had passed such a law, there would probably be five, not 108 parties in the race.
It gets better. Parties were required to pay the equivalent of KSh 112 million before the Samuel Kiviutu of Russia would allow them to nominate candidates. Now, that is how you steal an election the modern way. Stuffing ballot boxes, and bribing voters are out of fashion, apparently because they are not very efficient methods. The fellow who eats your money will probably still vote against you.
In non-election news, Armin Meiwes, the German who was convicted of cannibalism last year (he killed, filleted, froze and ate a man he met in an internet chatroom), a few days became a vegetarian in the prison where he is serving a life sentence.
Meiwes was also voted to lead the environmental Green Party section in the maximum-security prison.
The group of Green Party supporters is made up of murderers, paedophiles and drug-dealers, and now has a cannibal as its leader. The lesson for us in all this is that you don't need to be a conscientious citizen to be an environmentalist.
However, most people will insist their future son-in-law be an honest man. Otherwise, he will suffer the fate of Prabir Das, of Dispur in Assam, who was recently beaten up by his fiancée and her family after they discovered that the poor chap is bald and wears a wig.
It is amazing how much, however much we deny it, looks matter in our world. Also, how far people will go to look beautiful. The Times (London) reports that Lumigan, a drug used to treat glaucoma, a condition that can lead to blindness, is the latest beauty hit. In Britain prescriptions for Lumigan have shot up by 40 per cent and it has become hugely popular in the USA because women are snapping it up, after it was found to stimulate eyelash growth!
It's not only women who take medicines meant for debilitating disease, for beauty reasons. Men too have theirs, and we not talking of Viagra. Minoxidil, originally an oral medication for high blood pressure, proved able to treat hair loss and baldness. Men are gulping it down like it was beer.
The really depressing news, though, came in a study published in the latest issue of Science. The study, led by Professor Armin Falk, an economist at Bonn University, found that men are happiest with pay rises if others get less. Until now, conventional economic theory held that it's the absolute increase in pay that matters most.
Apparently not for men. The study found that it's not the increase in a man's pay packet that is important but whether or not the increase is bigger than those of other people.
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