[kictanet] kictanet Digest, Vol 70, Issue 201 - Re: Opinion Technology, transparency, and the Kenyan general Election

[Brian Munyao Longwe]

Aquinas,

I agree with you 110% about the "human factor" aspect of the issues with
IEBC. I will take this opportunity to (re) post my piece on the human
factor which I had shared a couple weeks ago.

---------------

In #140Friday over the past several days we have been discussing issues and
challenges that face the implementation of IT systems, with special focus
on “Public Service” IT systems. This attention has largely been triggered
by the failure of Kenya’s Independent Election and Boundaries Commission
(IEBC) Results Transmission System (RTS). Last week #140Friday had a
face-to-face meeting at the Nailab which brought together a diverse group
of professionals from various backgrounds to discuss the subject. As the
group talked about “what went wrong” and “what could have been done better”
with regards to various Public IT systems one key point that consistently
came up was the importance of the human factor.


[image: godfinger]<http://140friday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/godfinger.jpg>

Most IT system implementations apply project management techniques in order
to have a higher success rate, better performance management, efficient
management of time and resources and better communication amongst key
stakeholders. But research and experience have shown that tools, processes
and analytics only show about half of the picture, the most critical (and
least obvious) is what we can call the “human factor”. All projects consist
of people with needs, wants, desires, issues and time constraints. This
“human factor” must be addressed in order to ensure higher levels of
project success.

As more details emerge about the IEBC RTS project it becomes evident that
the human factor probably contribute to most, if not all of the problems
that led to the projects failure. There appear to have been a number of
blunders, both big as well as small which affected the entire process from
beginning to end. Ranging from personal pride (or should we call it
obstinacy?) amongst key members of IEBC top management, who turned away
advice and offers of assistance to address problems that became evident
weeks and months prior to the election.

The lack of electricity at tallying and polling stations and the failure to
take appropriate measures to ensure that electronics being used had stable
power supply points to poor planning and preparation. The locations where
tallying and polling stations would be located were known many months prior
to the elections. It would have been a simple task to allocate a team the
task of ensuring that there was reliable power in each and every room that
would be used for the election, unfortunately this issue was never
addressed or came to the fore too late for anything meaningful to be done
about it. This is a perfect example of an oversight that comes as a result
of the human factor.

It has been humorously stated that all project failures have 6 phases:

   1. Enthusiasm
   2. Disillusionment
   3. Panic
   4. Search for the guilty
   5. Punishment of the innocent
   6. Praise and honors for the non-participants

Interestingly enough, the IEBC RTS projects seems to be going through these
phases with the entire country acting as judge, jury and executioner. While
all the details are still not in the public domain, it is safe to say that
this particular project shall go down in the annals of Kenyan ICT history
as a classic example of how *NOT* to do things.

Some recommendations on how to address human factor challenges (from Kim
Resch “Using The Human Factor To Launch Products”)

*Management Buy-In*

   1. The larger the project the more management support is needed
   2. Get and keep management involved in the right projects at the right
   time – don’t wear out your welcome
   3. First thing, gain the clear understanding of the manager’s highest
   level goals and desires
   4. On a regular basis meet one-on-one with management to up-date and ask
   for support
   5. Meet with, face-to-face, each manager of each person assigned to the
   project – gain commitment
   6. When priorities shift re-commit with all levels of management
   7. Gain outward signs of approval & support from management

*Team Dynamics*

   1. Get to know each person on your team, including personal likes,
   interests, etc. & share about yourself too
   2. Get buy-in – sell hard when necessary
   3. Trust the people on your team and show them you trust them
   4. Give them a chance to shine and get recognition – ‘relinquishing
   power’
   5. Define their strengths & weaknesses
   6. Spend time explaining the importance of the project – to the bigger
   picture
   7. Write thank-you notes and take time to have a snack/lunch with the
   team
   8. Go out of your way to care and be personal
   9. Never let family or the individual come second
   10. And at the same time, push them through example and challenge them
   beyond what they think they can do

*Essential Communications*

   1. After leadership the second most important role you will play
   2. Watch for issues, build-up and possible explosions – only way to know
   is via talking, seeing and sharing
   3. E-mail is the scourge of proper and effective communications – great
   for documentation, horrible for getting the right out-come
   4. Communicate often with the key team members and (on larger or fast
   projects, do so every day), with the larger circle of members at minimum
   weekly
   5. Utilize all forms of communications
   6. Involve upper management in formal & relaxed moments
   7. Restate the mission, goals, business impact, etc.
   8. At start of program develop a scope document that includes the
   business value and the ‘why it is important’
   9. Handwrite thank-you notes along the way

*Convert Mountains into Molehills*

   1. Obstacle remover
   2. Work the team to bring expectations into alignment
   3. Shut down gossip and trash-talk
   4. Address problems head on – first to the immediate person then go up
   the chain
   5. Clarify, define and bring into prospective
   6. Feel the pain, but move beyond to the result – generate a positive
   outcome
   7. When a person is blocking the project’s success, after attempts to
   correct the behavior, have them removed – nothing and no one is untouchable
   8. Keep the mission visible and the end result alive
   9. Don’t let scope creep & ‘fix all the ills of the business’, change
   the project’s desired result

 *Keep spirits up*

   1. Utilize recognition & incentives
   2. Non-cash rewards are better
   3. Both team and individual rewards & recognition
   4. Reward for each milestone or important result
   5. Say thank you, in writing and in group settings
   6. Hold up performers
   7. Hold a kick-off meeting followed up with an activity
   8. Reward positive behaviors openly, handle poor behaviors privately and
   one-on-one (use as a learning experience)
   9. Get management to ‘stop by’ performing individuals’ cubes/offices or
   meetings to say ‘I heard and wanted to say…’
   10. Create performance legends & stories
   11. The positive spirit begins with you

*Velocity & Vision*

   1. Determine upfront how much or little the specific project requires –
   the tools, tracking and formal processes
   2. Create a vision the team can believe in, including how fast and why
   3. Create a sense of urgency and action (if it can be done now then do
   it)
   4. Important means speed – velocity only comes with a clear
   understanding of where you started and where you are going
   5. Make it real, make it tangible
   6. The pace of the leader sets the pace of the pack!




On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Aquinas Wasike <aquinasw at lantech.co.ke>wrote:

>  Forgive me for the long post that I am just about to make!
>
> I would like to chip in with my comments to the on-going discussion about
> IEBC and Technology.
>
> The IEBC shortfalls were not about technology. It was about people and
> process and the risk mitigations put around the whole effort!
>
> Some of you are aware that we were mentioned several times as a player
> around the technology failures. This is not to placate our position. We had
> no position to defend as our systems were fully and properly delivered and
> performed 100% to expectation. We are very proud of our work at IEBC.
>
> Yes, it was a massive IS (Information Systems) effort where literary
> tonnes of cash (yes, I say this with some form of sarcasm as we did not
> need to spend in the manner we did) was availed. The fiasco surrounding the
> BVR voter registration procurement (Biometric & AFIS – to avoid double
> registration/dead voters) has been well documented and written about. Our
> previous elections (2007) were marred by a resultant election violence
> catalysed by a claimed election fraud/theft that is said to have been
> caused by claims that the then manual voter registration system was porous
> and may have been manipulated allowing double registration in some areas
> and even ballot box stuffing in many others. So all this spending was in an
> attempt to avoid a repeat of this.
>
> On 9th November 2012 in an email conversation with some colleagues who I
> know are also active on this list I said and I quote *“…….I must say that
> IEBC now remains the single largest threat to the security and safety of
> Kenya in the way they are managing this very sensitive matter. This is my
> personal opinion; it is not the opinion of LANTech (my employer) which is
> currently engaged in a business transaction with IEBC. I would say very
> frankly that their level of preparedness is appalling!”* Still earlier
> on, on 30th October I had expressed the very same similar sentiments where
> I said, *“…..I wonder whether IEBC will not use this as an excuse to
> scuttle any hope for the Kenyan Diaspora to vote. I must say that the
> level/state of preparedness by IEBC is shocking to say the least. It is a
> classic case of how not to! Some of us who are doing some work there are
> just shocked at how things have been left to the very last minute and with
> this you can be sure that a lot of stuff will fall through their fingers.
> We pray for Mother Kenya!”**. *As it happens both my predictions have
> come to pass.
>
> There numerous goofs were mostly self-inflicted, few others quite external
> and even others very expected on a project of this nature in which you will
> expect that they will anticipate and take corrective action or plan for
> risk mitigation. Let us say that the main and biggest self-inflicted risk
> was procuring the systems very late into the calendar of the already known
> election date (I will not also go into the details of vested interests
> which was well reported about).
>
> For example the BVR Kit should have been procured and delivered by May
> 2012 to allow for 90days voter registration period. In the end the voter
> registration was only conducted in 30days deep into the election calendar
> and other milestones on the calendar were equally reduced. Even then
> Kenyans were very eager and more than 14.5m of us registered to vote! And
> we must do away with this practise of registration for elections when they
> are nigh.
>
> Voter registrations should be a continuous exercise (as our new
> constitution states) and even then anybody with an ID, having registered by
> the Registrar of Persons (as an adult Kenyan) should by default have a
> right to vote. The registration of persons should not be any business of
> IEBC as you will see in my other discussion that I will start asking for
> the Ministry of Immigration to stop the current tender for the AFIS/Civil
> Registration systems and instead take over the systems just newly procured
> by IEBC.
>
> The IEBC enjoyed massive goodwill both locally and multi-lateral partners
> who ensured that it had all the resources (fiscal) and otherwise to run the
> elections. This is probably where the expectations were not matched evenly
> with the delivery (call it reality). It may seem that the IEBC was lacking
> in that other resource that may not have been anticipated or planned i.e.
> its human resource capacity to deliver on the expectations. The 2013
> Elections were the most complicated ever with 6 different seats being
> voted/vied for at the same time. This was akin to running six different
> elections in parallel. This is a huge logistical exercise by any measure!
> Thus the decision and rightly so to use technology as an enabler to deliver
> the election.
>
> If we analyse the Technology dimension, the ICT infrastructure at IEBC was
> discredited and archaic having been largely inherited from the old ECK. No
> clean voter database existed. It had to be recreated afresh with a fresh
> voter registration exercise, the reason for procuring the BVR voter
> registration system (worth close to Kshs. 9b as reported in some circles –
> US$105m).
>
> Then the EVID system (Electronic Voter Identification System/poll-books)
> and other technology that went largely un-reported. Even though the EVID
> system was supposed to be leading-edge, in reality it isn’t. This was
> supposed to identify you at the polling station and then immediately update
> the database that you have indeed accessed your polling station where you
> registered/are supposed to vote and that you have cast your ballot. This
> was the “closest” we would come to electronic voting (as envisaged by the
> Kriegler commission) which was not possible because of the reality of the
> communication infrastructure challenge and the general level of literacy of
> the voting population which may not be at a high enough level to allow for
> a seamless electronic election voting. As we are all aware, these
> poll-books failed massively, sinking close to $40m down the drain!
>
> I would say that the risk mitigation applied was in the form of manual
> forms 34 & 36 that we are now familiar with.
>
> Talking about the process dimension of the election, IEBC would have had
> to apply a mix of in-house and external persons to conduct the elections
> including taking the route of sub-contracting and outsourcing to conduct
> most of its core mandate i.e. conducting elections. Internally it needed to
> have the requisite skilled people to manage the out-source/sub-contract
> operations while ensuring contracted services are delivered. This would be
> risk transference at work.
>
> An election is a massive exercise in its very nature. IEBC knew that at
> the election period itself, it would require close to 400,000 people
> working for the few days to the run-up to the elections and few days after
> (say a week). This is a huge logistical process and part of the discussion
> would have been to allow the BVR and EVID equipment suppliers to also
> recruit and train the head count that will be used for this period as part
> of the ways of managing this process. This would have probably ensured that
> these gadgets worked and not the excuses that the batteries failed or
> password were forgotten.
>
> From the above, we see that the mitigation actions that should have been
> taken would not only be qualitative but also quantitative. A mix of
> technical and social actions should have been deployed. The human factor
> “failed” this election and one would say that the technology integration to
> the whole election exercise failed except the case of the BVR Voter
> registration which mercifully went well/successfully and only due to the
> Kenyans own desire to register and not necessarily that the IEBC did
> anything spectacular about it (as we have seen the voter registration
> systems were delivered very late in the day!).
>
> So then we see the need for a hybridisation of not only the management
> practise but also the actions taken to mitigate the risks.
>
> The human element in the whole exercise failed to adequately weld together
> all the various elements to deliver a flawless election. We are now
> discussing that technology failed when it is actually that the people
> tasked with ensuring the integration of all the systems together largely
> did not make this happen.
>
> *What I am now concerned about is what we do with this huge investment in
> information technology (close to US$ 150m in value). This is huge spend. We
> must find a way in which this investment must be deployed in other
> departments e.g. the Civil Registration Bureau for a complete new and clean
> civilian database and hence issuance of a new 3rd generation ID card that
> should ideally serve as your voter’s card at any time that an election may
> be called.*
>
> I hope that this has not been a boring post.
>
> Regards
>
> Aquinas
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Aquinas Wasike
> Chief Executive Officer
>
> LANTech (Africa) Limited
> PO Box 6384 - 00200
> 11th Floor, Pension Towers
> Loita Street
> Nairobi, Kenya
>
> Mobile: +254 722 511120
> DL :    +254 20 2245476
> Fax :   +254 20 316747
>
> Email: aquinasw at lantech.co.ke
> Website: www.lantech.co.ke
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: kictanet [
> mailto:kictanet-bounces+aquinasw=lantech.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke<kictanet-bounces+aquinasw=lantech.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke>]
> On Behalf Of kictanet-request at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2013 7:05 PM
> To: Aquinas Wasike
> Subject: kictanet Digest, Vol 70, Issue 201
>
> Send kictanet mailing list submissions to
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Opinion Technology, transparency,     and the Kenyan general
>       election of 2013 (Jotham Kilimo Mwale)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2013 09:03:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Jotham Kilimo Mwale <jokilimo at yahoo.com>
> To: "S.M. Muraya" <murigi.muraya at gmail.com>
> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency,       and the
>         Kenyan general election of 2013
> Message-ID:
>         <1364745829.35382.YahooMailNeo at web122004.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> @Brian - well said in your response to @Walu and also in the article. Ours
> is a manual voting system, and in 2013 some processes (voter registration
> and identification, results transmission and tallying) were enhanced (not
> replaced) by deploying technology. This technology failed (voter
> identification and RTS) on voting day thus removing the enhancement but, in
> my opinion, not affecting the integrity of the manual voting system. Others
> saw it differently, hence the petitions. Detailed Supreme Court judgement
> may shed light on this.
>
> @ Muraya - the high voter turn out in 2013 can be attributed to several
> factors, chief among them that it was a fresh register compiled only 3
> months to the election. Chances are the people who registered intended to
> vote and even if one accounts for natural attrition, chances of well over
> 90% turnout should not raise any eyebrows. This was not the situation in
> 2002, 2007 and 2010 when an old register was updated but the dead over the
> years were never/rarely removed.
> ?
> Jotham?
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: S.M. Muraya <murigi.muraya at gmail.com>
> To: jokilimo at yahoo.com
> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2013 3:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the Kenyan
> general election of 2013
>
>
>
> Even as conspiracy theories (continue to) abound, let us note age old
> wisdom stating:
>
> "Every matter/case must be established by two or three witnesses"
>
> Over 3 elections/witnesses exist as to how many votes were probably cast
> on March 4th, 2013.
>
> Looking at Nairobi votes, (i) the presidential, (ii) governor and (iii)
> senator -- total votes cast were?over 1.3 million (over 72% voter turnout)
> in all 3 races.
>
> If voter turnout in Nairobi has averaged 50% in past elections (2002,
> 2007, 2010 - referendum), this was an over 40% increase....
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 2:03 PM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> @Walu
> >
> >A forced marriage is very different from a marriage between consenting
> partners. I venture to say that the "marriage" between Kibaki and Raila was
> forced.
> >
> >The "marriages" in this election were consensual. Night and day
> difference.
> >
> >As for the RTS system - I beg to differ. Not matter how much we may WANT
> the electronic system to have been there as a parallel verification system
> the truth (and the fact) is that RTS was merely for transmission of
> PROVISIONAL results (as clearly indicated in practically all official
> specifications for the RTS). As per the Supreme Court the real vote was the
> paper ballot count along with the various checks and balances.
> >
> >Nevertheless your reasoning is spot on in terms of one of the ways in
> which technology *can* be used to enhance the vote. Hopefully if anything
> comes out of this dialogue, some of these points will be included in the
> design of future systems intended to support the election.
> >
> >
> >Best regards,
> >
> >
> >Brian
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >@Brian,
> >>
> >>Coalition Govt will be with us forever.?? Our current govt, Jubilee is a
> coalition between TNA and URP.? So expect "nusu-mkate" politics to be with
> us for a while and it is not necessarily a bad thing.? Even UK, Germany,
> Israel and many other mature democracies have these types of governments.?
> Perhaps we just need to learn how to manage them.
> >>
> >>
> >>@Rigia,
> >>Nice piece on the technology and election processes.? But it misses one
> fundamental that most analysts, legal counsel and I dare say the Supreme
> court may have missed.? The fact that the Results Transmission System (RTS)
> is not just useful in "speeding-up" the announcement of results but its
> fundamental and more useful role is by acting as a PARALLEL verification
> mechanism.?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>What this means is that once the tallying has been done and announced at
> the LOCAL Polling station, those very (Presidential) results are supposed
> to be instantly transmitted to the NATIONAL Level and thereof made public
> to the wider national community. In essence the "local" data is no longer
> just local but becomes "global", and any attempt to modify the same at a
> later stage,? by way of agreement, error or outright corruption will
> require a good amount of explanation. This is because what was Transmitted
> and displayed electronically is expected to match the physical election
> Forms 34 as they arrive at the National level, 2-3days later.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Remember, just because all agents did sign the election documents
> >>(Form34) maybe good but it is not sufficient evidence that what was
> >>countersigned is indeed what was announced (each signatures has a
> >>price?).? It is much stronger and a better? check if what has been
> >>countersigned manually is cross-checked against another parallel
> >>system - the Results Transmission System. One may then ask, what if
> >>the RTS is also compromised? i.e. Agents collude with the Returning
> >>Officer to sends fictitious results instanteneously over the RTS??
> >>This is unlikely to happen because as our outgoing President, Mwai
> >>Kibaki once rightly put it, you need Intelligence to rig elections
> >>:-).? Most of this "intelligence" only occurs after a period of time
> >>(1-2-3days) later when 60-70-80% of the results at various polling
> >>stations is locally? known? but remains globally or nationally unkown
> >>(awaiting physical arrival of Form36) . It will not be very
> >>intelligeny to start
>  rigging an election, when you are yet to gather the general
> trend(intelligence) of the results since one can easily over-rig and get
> caught :-). So you can bet your salary that instantly transmitted results
> are likely to be more reliable/correct results as compared to the physical
> ones that will arrive 3days later.?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Put differently "instantaneous" transmission of? results at the
> >>polling stations distributes widely what is otherwise "local"
> >>knowledge and DENIES potential election riggers the opportunity and
> >>the time to leverage on this type of intelligence. The Results
> >>Transmission System ensures that no single candidate enjoys the
> >>monopoly of local knowledge (Results at? Polling Station that are not
> >>yet in the national public domain) and thus eliminates the temptation
> >>to abuse the same to their advantage. Knowledge is indeed power and
> >>local knowledge is even more powerful - I should add.? If politician's
> >>Agents knew that Polling results were no longer "local" but widely
> >>known across the country - courtesy of the instantaneous Results
> >>Transmission System - then the temptation to sign against
> >>fictitious/edited result figures will be greatly reduced.? Indeed this
> >>fact alone, will diminish any Politician's desire to even begin to
> >>compromise Agents at the Polling
>  station since it is futile to do so upon knowing that the Results are
> already "out and about" in the public domain.?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>So my prayer for 2017/18 is that as an ICT community, we must ask and
> indeed demand that IEBC ensures that as a minimum tech-input to the
> elections, the Results Transmission System must work.?
> >>
> >>
> >>Lets Enjoy our Easter and the Jubilee years ahead.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>walu.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>________________________________
> >> From: Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>
> >>To: jwalu at yahoo.com p
> >>Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> >>Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2013 11:11 PM
> >>
> >>Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the
> >>Kenyan general election of 2013
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Since I have developed a reputation for saying the unpopular things that
> people think but are either too shy or too conflicted to talk about I will
> make a simple point that I have observed over the past few years.
> >>
> >>While the coalition government was lauded as a reasonable way of dealing
> with the electoral debacle that we faced in 2007, the truth is that for the
> past 5 years there have been some very strange and unusual dynamics at work
> in the operations and makeup of Government departments and agencies. A
> massive plus has been the much higher levels of scrutiny and
> accountability. But I would like to suggest that the benefits have been
> outweighed by the disadvantages.
> >>
> >>A good example, and one that I would like to use here is the IEBC - it
> is no secret that the two principals had to "share out" the various
> positions that needed to be filled both a commissioner as well as senior
> management. This has been the pattern for almost all appointments and
> recruiting exercises across Government.
> >>
> >>I venture to say that this approach has been counterproductive and aside
> from yielding teams that can work together in planning, policy, strategy
> and implementation within their departments/agencies has yielded a replica
> of the competitive, antagonistic, selfish and almost vindictive tension
> that has been evident between the two principals since day one.
> >>
> >>It is my sincere hope that the next government will be marked by a
> complete change in attitude, with more of a genuine team-based dynamic in
> terms of setting and achieving organizational goals.
> >>
> >>My two cents,
> >>
> >>Brian
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 10:21 PM, Dick Omondi <Dick.Omondi at ke.airtel.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>Now that we have a court decision that clears the matter of the
> presidency,  perhaps it is now time to remove the emotions of the decision,
> turn away from politics and get down to the core issues in real
> institutional management and those surrounding the processes and the people
> around the IEBC lest we sit back and get through another four years and put
> together another unit in the last year of the 5 and go back to the same
> merry go round.
> >>>________________________________
> >>> From: kictanet
> >>>To: Dick Omondi
> >>>Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> >>>Sent: Sat Mar 30 21:40:14 2013
> >>>
> >>>Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the
> >>>Kenyan general election of 2013
> >>>
> >>>Thank you Ali. I appreciate your comments. Shukran.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>Wariga
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the read. I want to however object to
> >>>>the words:-
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>'...the election results show that technology has failed them.'
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>I humbly submit that what failed us in this case is a mix of partisan
> politicking, a knack for jostling to see how each proponent could
> manipulate the process for their own benefit and lastly the failure of the
> IEBC leadership to accept and tell Kenyans to our faces that the most
> expensive technology ever bought for elections in Kenya (and Probably
> Africa) was designed to fail before it landed in the country.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>I would replace the sentence '...the election results show that
> >>>>technology has failed them.' with the sentence
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>'...the election results show that leadership has failed them.'
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>The saving grace is that we have a sober Supreme Court and we thank
> God for them.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>Ali Hussein
> >>>>CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd
> >>>>Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>+254 773/713 601113
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>"The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
> >>>>
> >>>>Sent from my iPad
> >>>>
> >>>>On Mar 29, 2013, at 11:05 PM, Warigia Bowman <warigia at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>I thought you guys might enjoy this piece.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201332913551936530
> >>>>>8.html
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Take a look, and tell me what you think. :-)
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Warigia
> >>>>>
> >>>>_______________________________________________
> >>>>>
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> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder
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> >>>
> >>>--
> >>>
> >>>Dr. Warigia Bowman
> >>>Assistant Professor?
> >>>Clinton School of Public Service
> >>>University of Arkansas
> >>>wbowman at clintonschool.uasys.edu
> -------------------------------------------------
> >>>View my research on my SSRN Author page:
> >>>http://ssrn.com/author=1479660
> >>>--------------------------------------------------
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