Another Stolen Bourgeois Election

What makes an election result credible? Those who would steal an election, and yet make the result seem credible, need to have answers to this question. So do the bourgeois media, who often publish the truth – but only if they have to. So do we, so that we can “read between the lines” of the bourgeois press.

One answer is that a bogus result can be more credible when the election is presented as “close”, “neck and neck”, et cetera. Therefore the people who would steal it will first try to spread the rumour that the support for the candidates is equal, or nearly equal. This method was used (unsuccessfully) prior to the 52nd ANC National Conference, even though the entire country knew that Msholozi, ANC President Jacob Zuma, had a massive majority of support. Yet the bourgeois media were frequently content to go along with the fiction that it was “too close to call”. They failed to inform people when people needed to be informed.

This method was also used in Kenya. The election has actually now been stolen, by the hugely exposed, unpopular, billionaire, corrupt oligarch Mwai Kibaki, who has been one of the principle comprador stooges for Imperialism in Kenya for over forty years. Now the bourgeois “analysts” will again swing into action to say that after all it was “close”, and the result is “not unexpected”, when the whole world can see that it was daylight robbery.

As usual, the earliest reports are likely to be more accurate, because the editors have less time to suppress, to select, and to spin. The first report of the Kenya Presidential election below is from Reuters. The headline (always put there by the editor, never by the reporter) boldly announces Kibaki’s “win”. But the text of the report makes it very clear that the result is disputed. Not only is it disputed by the Kenyan masses on the streets, but also by the bourgeois-democratic neo-colonial Imperialist “observers”.

The second (News24) item is another telling one, of the kind that will soon be buried by the bourgeois media themselves, even though it should be of great interest to them. Here, the government bans live broadcasts! There can be only one reason for this, and that is censorship. Censorship is needed to stop anyone blurting out the truth on radio or TV. Nobody may say that the new Emperor’s new clothes are a fraud and a myth. Not for a couple of weeks’ time, anyway. After that, the spin can be permitted to turn back the other way, with added “Afro-pessimism”, no doubt.

The complicity of the Imperialists is shamelessly demonstrated by the British and US “call for acceptance”, even though their own appointed observers are aware of the fraud. See the third item, from the Nairobi Daily Nation.

Last Christmas Ethiopia, acting as a proxy for the US Imperialists with the complicity of President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, invaded Somalia. The chaos, death, impoverishment and misery wreaked by this criminality continues to this day. Now, using different tactics, the misery is being spread to the adjacent country of Kenya. It shows us that it is high time we organised a serious, pan-continental anti-Imperialist drive in Africa. The photograph above is of Raila Odinga, son of Jaramogi Ogiga Odinga. We salute him. By the way, Jaramogi’s autobiography, “Not Yet Uhuru”, was written in collaboration with South Africa’s Ruth First. We owe it to these pioneering comrades that we take up their work and finish it.

Comrade Fidel Castro is still with us, and he still says that there has not been one day of it when he did not learn anything (see the fourth item below). We want to follow him in that respect, among many others. We wish another successful year of learning to him in 2008 and the same to ourselves and to the whole Communist University family.

Finally, for the record, the last item linked below is the statement of Cde JZ’s Attorney, Michael Hulley, issued on the occasion of the issuing of the “indictment” that was sent to JZ’s house on 28 December, while he was away in KZN. That business must also be concluded, and very soon. Otherwise, as Antonio Gramsci put it, we will have a situation where: “The old is dying and the new cannot be born - in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear”.

Apologies for the fact that this message is a day late, due to the Communist University being “capped” by Telkom for the very first time, on New Years' Eve, for allegedly using too much commodified Internet access, or “bandwidth”. The next edition should include the SACP and COSATU New Year messages, and will be done as soon as possible.

Click on these links:

Kibaki wins Kenya vote, protests erupt, Wallis and Kanina, Reuters (504 words)

Kenya suspends live broadcasts, News24 (170 words)

US and Britain call for acceptance of results, Kenneth Ogosia, Daily Nation (449 words)

Fidel Castro to Cuban National Assembly, No day I didn't learn something (1426 words)

Indictment served 28 December 2007, Michael Hulley, Attorney for JZ (246 words)