Marsgroup Kenya should be showing live clips every 15 minutes. Site is a bit slow so be patient.
Man, I wish I could be liveblogging this.
Live broadcasting of Parliament should be a permanent thing. Trying to get MPs to vote that in is another matter altogether. A
From a skype chat with someone who is watching and who is describing the scene as Disneyland…
– they are currently debating what a secret ballot is – one side wants voting to be done in the open (guess who?) and the other side is insisting on a secret ballot (ODM wants to track down the guys who were bought…hehehe…and we wonder who the problem with Kenya is when ODM can’t even count on its own MPs….washindwe wote!).
EDIT: ODM didn’t take up the govt seats as they had threatened to do, Raila is sitting where Uhuru used to sit – a sign perhaps that ODM is catching on to the fact that they need to engage in some realpolitik and stop relying solely on the mass action card (but then again I’m a perennial optimist about Kenya).
EDIT 2: Round 1 voting – Marende (ODM 104); Kaparo (PNU 99), Ndile (2), Njoki Ndungu (0) Spoilt (2) [uum, how they hell are there spoilt votes, are these “bought guys” who are wavering?…in any event even if they swing to PNU, looks like ODM has won the Speaker seat if their discipline holds up]
EDIT 3: Round 2 of voting – Marende (ODM 104); Kaparo (PNU 102), Ndile (0), Kihoro (1) – ODM seems to be holding. For those who are asking, not sure whether a new Speaker will conduct things any differently from Kaparo as far as professionalism, but expect ODM to shut down government business or make it difficult (at least for as long as they can prevent individuals from jumping ship). First order of business I gather is for the new speaker to refuse to swear in MPs.
EDIT 4: Marende (ODM) wins it – 105 to Kaparo (PNU) 101. ODM also win deputy speaker – Farah Maalim. Let the games begin. Now that’s done, can I ask how Marende became the ODM guy, he was very unpopular on Mzalendo, though he made it back on the ODM wave?