Tech warrior or villain? Poll brings out the other side of CS Mucheru

Saturday morning, barely 12 hours after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) announced the winner of the hotly contested presidential election, all major local TV stations had moved on with normal programming.

To put it in the words of a popular columnist, all but one were “televising wedding shows and cartoons” even as some winners of the just-concluded General Election were yet to receive their certificates.

At the same time, reports were filtering in through social media about violent protests in some opposition strongholds across the country, with some parts witnessing extended protests throughout the previous night.

Little of this was reported real-time by local TV stations, forcing Kenyans to rely on unverified social media reports (sometimes peppered with fake news) or international cable news networks, including CNN and Al Jazeera, which often lack the capacity to give in-depth reports that are of use to Kenyans.

This prompted a backlash against the local media from readers and viewers who were of the perception that the media was deliberately giving the protests a blackout.

A large part of the reason for the media’s cautious coverage of this year’s election can be traced to ICT Cabinet SecretaryJoe Mucheru, who during the campaign period had issued a stern warning to the press about what was expected expected of it in terms of coverage.

This came even as the ICT Ministry refused to commit to non-interference with Internet services during and after the election period.

Late last month, Mr Mucheru warned that the Government would revoke the licences of media houses that would attempt to tally election results after the polls last week.

“We have allowed people to tally their own votes, but they will do so in their homes or bunkers. Wherever they are, they can do the tallying for themselves. If anyone dares to announce or publish any results other than IEBC’s watajuta sisi (they will regret),” he said weeks to the polls.

“If the media tries to announce results, hata hiyo tutafunga, wacha  (We will shut them down, leave alone) this Internet business you are talking about.”

The CS’s remarks drew ire from media stakeholders, with ICT practitioners terming them a ploy to intimidate media houses and the public.

“No media house in this country has ever purported to carry official results. However, media houses can and should announce the results from different polling stations and constituencies,” said Ali Hussein, an official of the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTAN).

“Often, the lack of information is what causes unnecessary pressure and concern. It is instructive to note that the IEBC will put results on its portal and any Kenyan with a social media account and access to the media can tally their own results,” he said.

This was not the first time Mucheru was having his policy standpoint challenged by his colleagues from the private sector.

Before his appointment as Cabinet Secretary one year and eight months ago, Mr Mucheru was the Google Country Manager for Kenya where he had worked since June 2007 when he started out as leader of the delivery of strategy, business planning and operations.

Before joining Google, he had worked at Wananchi Online, a company he co-founded in 1999.

The appointment of an industry insider was seen as progressive and there were heavy expectations that he would play a role in growing the industry and entrenching Kenya’s position as a continental tech powerhouse.

However, Mr Mucheru has time and again found himself at loggerheads with those who rely on his ministry for administration of industry policies and this election only served to widen the rift.

Electronic system

Earlier this year, the CS found himself on the receiving end when he faced criticism from the country’s technology community by suggesting that a manual electoral voting system was necessary alongside an electronic one.

“One per cent failure means over 200,000 Kenyans can’t vote,” explained Mr Mucheru when he appeared before a Senate Committee in January this year.

He argued that electronic voter systems were vulnerable to hacks, including from the Al Shabaab militia and that the manual copy of the verified register would only be used as a last resort.

“The paper copy is of the verified voter register not of the entire database and we need to have it as a country as a back up in case the technology fails,” he explained.

However, members of the ICT community differed with the CS, arguing that using the electronic system and building systems to prevent breaches were the best bet towards safeguarding the elections.

“The employment of technology in elections management is meant to address questions of integrity of the election and efficiency in transmission of the results,” explained KITCAN through a memorandum to Parliament.

“Good systems are built with inherent redundancy and it is possible to develop a system that safeguards the integrity of the vote as well as efficiency of transmission. It is possible to have the primary and redundant systems being electronic,” said the lobby in the memorandum.

And in mid-July when Kenyans woke up to the shocking news that Joseph Nkaiserry, the then CS in the Ministry of Interior and Co-ordination of National Government had passed on suddenly, speculation was rife as to the cause of his death.

Hours after the news broke, former columnist and political commentator Mutahi Ngunyi published a video on YouTube alleging that CS Nkaiserry had been assassinated and that some politicians had a hand in the murder.

The video raised criticism from a section of Internet users, with many citing it as propaganda meant to incite. Several prominent figures, including Mucheru, called for it to be taken down.

“That one is just hate speech, there’s no other way of looking at it and we have asked them to please take it down,” the CS explained, referring to Google’s new country head Charles Murito who was in the same room.

The video was, however, not removed and has since racked up more than 270,000 likes.