Nic Cheeseman Profile picture
Prof of Democracy, Director @CEDAR_Bham at @unibirmingham, founder @AfricaDemocracy, columnist @TheAfricaReport, collab with @thecontinent_, retwts not...
Sep 3, 2022 13 tweets 4 min read
What happens if the Supreme Court nullifies the Kenyan Presidential election 2023 on Monday?

That’s far from the end of the story.

A 🧵

1. It seems far more likely they will …

#kenyaelections2022
#KenyansDecides2022
#kenya

kenyalaw.org/kenyalawblog/e… … order a “fresh” election or a “run off” than give victory straight to Odinga.

This immediately creates a massive challenge: who will organise the necessary election?

Azimio will reject Chebukati, Kenya Kwanza will reject the 4 “rebel” commissioners.

To avoid deadlock …
Sep 2, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
Big development in the Kenyan elections. Contacting party agents to get original forms 34A from disputed polling stations, the BBC did not find a single discrepancy

In other words there is “no evidence of interference”

🧵

#Kenya
#kenyaelections2022

bbc.co.uk/news/62724762 Image The BBC managed to get copies of the forms given to party agents for 21 polling stations, including in some case from Azimio agents

They find these all match the official results. This means the forms were not tampered with through some kind of hacking

“They were the same” Image
Aug 22, 2022 36 tweets 9 min read
A few (very early) thoughts on the Azimio petition.

Let’s start with the strengths:

1. the KPMG audit did indeed raise a number of concerning points that need to be investigated
2. is true that the absence of elections for …

🧵 1/7

#KenyansDecides2022
#KenyanElection2022 … Governor in Kakamega and Mombasa may have reduced turnout in the presidential election for Odinga, though some of the accusations about why this happened are speculative and unevidenced.
3. If they can provide forms to substantiate the claim that 23,500 more people vote in …
Aug 17, 2022 22 tweets 7 min read
Having fact checked + challenged some election rigging accusations, it is worth making it clear that the election was not perfect

There are areas where @IEBCKenya will want to perform better next time + make for reasonable criticism

Here are a few:

🧵1/5

#KenyanElection2022 1. There was inconsistent use of the manual register in some areas. This seems to have been because court decisions changed the process twice *after* the IEBC completed training, so maybe not IEBC's "fault", but it is nonetheless an inconsistency

citizen.digital/news/court-of-…
Aug 16, 2022 5 tweets 3 min read
Serena 4 presser now on

Started very badly for their credibility

Claim a big problem is that the results stated added to 100.1% which is “mathematically impossible”

It’s not impossible it’s the product of rounding the numbers …

#KenyanElection2022
#KenyaDecides2022 Image Proceeds to suggest there are 142,000 votes not counted.

Again, there is a basic misunderstanding of mathematics.

There are no 142,000. The 100.1% is due to rounding the numbers.

These claims could not be weaker so far.

#KenyanElection2022
#KenyaDecides2022 Image
Aug 15, 2022 5 tweets 3 min read
Heartbreaking to see the Kenyan elections fall apart

Explosive claims being made, including by 4 IEBC commissioners

Interesting that despite making a statement that may rip the country apart they provided no evidence + took no questions

Watch this space

#KenyanElection2022 Sadly all hopes of a consensual process + accepted outcome are now dashed

The question is now whether IEBC will go ahead + announce today

Those watching from outside might be surprised to know that in terms of the digital process of forms 34A + B this was much better than 2017 Image
Nov 3, 2020 5 tweets 4 min read
On Kenya BBI & the gender quota. Am I missing something or does it fail to *guarantee* that no more than two-thirds of Parliament will be of the same gender? I have read the proposals & it is not clear to me that it does 1/5 @MitullahWinnie @karutikk @gathara @Nanjala1 #BBIReport BBI mandates parties to have 30% women on their candidate lists. But this doesn’t ensure they win - if they contest against other male candidates many may lose. Only 27 women in the current parliament did not come through the reserved county seats. 2/5 @kopalo #BBIReport
Nov 3, 2020 6 tweets 4 min read
The world holds its breath as voters go to the polls in a deeply divided country. Political violence seems more likely than not due to pronounced ethnic divisions and irresponsible leadership. #ElectionDay #Election2020 #thread 1/5 google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theg… Despite growing fears of electoral manipulation and conflict, international observers have been denied access to some parts of the country, exacerbating fears that the president will refuse to leave office if he loses power. 2/5 #USAElections2020 google.co.uk/amp/s/theconve…
Jun 10, 2020 4 tweets 3 min read
To all those saying that slavery happened a long time ago, that it didn't benefit them directly, and that they not racists so why should they care - THIS is why you should care. #thread #slavery #blacklivesmatter #ukprotests #bristolstatue #RhodesMustFall 1/4 You may think that you don't personally benefit from slavery, but you almost certainly do. Many of you may be surprised to find your ancestors + people with your name in this database - like Thomas J. Cheeseman a British slave over. Check it out here: 2/4 ucl.ac.uk/lbs/project/de…
Mar 26, 2020 6 tweets 4 min read
The impact of #COVID19 on democracy, a #thread. There is a lot of discussion of this but some is a bit simplistic. We need to distinguish different mechanisms through which this works. I can see at least three. (Anyway wants me this up just DM me) 1 #COVID2019 #protectdemocracy The most obvious mechanism is that authoritarian leaders use #COVID19 to ban rallies and protests, and in some cases cancel elections, eg by declaring states of emergency. We might call this the covid *sleight of hand*, which is used by authoritarian regimes in trouble 2