Still Waiting For The Servers To Be Opened

Elections are the cornerstone of democracy and the foundation of free and fair societies. However, in Kenya, they are an opportunity for the ICT fraternity to play comatose. In this article, we take a closer look at consecutive elections marred by allegations of irregularities such as vote tampering and manipulation. This is a timely and critical examination of the state of our electoral systems, and the impact these irregularities have on the legitimacy and credibility of our elections.

In 2007, we, as usual, had a contested election. And since we had attempted to use technology to deliver a transparent and credible election, that did not happen. Unfortunately, the country almost went to the dogs as we took up arms against each other. As was expected, technology was held solely responsible.

One would have expected that after such a close call we would spare no expense to make sure that we would not experience the same affair during the next election five years later. But as has become our culture, that never happened either.

Instead, we all, and mainly the IT fraternity that had been blamed for the fiasco, went back to the usual laissezfaire life. We retreated into our cocoons to do whatever it is we do in there. Sadly, when we revive, we are still the same creatures that went in with no metamorphosis having happened.

Claims that the system was hacked meant one would have expected cyber forensic experts to offer themselves to investigate. But, again, as usual, the decision on whether there was hacking was left to our English language majors in the judiciary to interpret.

Interesting how there was not a single conference, workshop or tea party convened by the ICT fraternity to discuss what might have gone wrong never mind provide solutions as to how the same would not happen yet again. We had other matters to discuss.

In 2013, we had yet another election. This time under a new constitution which we had promulgated, whatever that really means. It was brand new with all the bells and whistles as well as airtight against any election malpractice. If my memory serves me well, and it does, we had also overhauled the teams at the helm of the electoral commission. Of course, most of those in the trenches remained intact.

Just like clockwork, we went to the polls. Soon after, the results were contested and the blame was placed squarely on technology, its untrustworthiness and ease of compromise. The ICT fraternity did what it does best; nothing.

Fast forward to 2017 when we had the next general election and like a scratched vinyl record - for those who do not know what that is please ChatGPT it - the outcome was contested. This time around, the presidential election was nullified. For some strange reason, other elected positions were not even though the exact same system was used to carry out those elections.

We then had a repeat presidential election which had a horrible turnout with the opposition party getting that early election nullified, boycotting the election and blaming the technology platform while we, the ICT fraternity, threw a 404. Or was it a 1327? I can no longer tell as debugging was turned off.

Now onto 2022. We yet again went to the polls with all parties agreeing that the technology was solid. But soon after the results were released, we went back to the English experts who declared that hot air had been released. As of this writing, we are back to the 2007, 2013 and 2017 chorus singing “Open the servers,” and as usual, we have returned to our cocoons waiting for the same to happen in 2027. Happy napping.