Kenyan governor candidates caught on camera buying votes

[smurfy]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYlH087vVoY[/media]

[url]http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/03/201331141512539677.html[/url]

[quote]Two candidates standing for governor seats in Kenya's upcoming elections have been caught on camera appearing to give cash bribes to groups of youths in exchange for votes.

The footage has been released by the Kenyan Human Rights Commission (KHRC), which is independent of the government.[/quote]

[Mr. Someguy]

oh so it runs in the family then

[Killer900]

Pieces of shit

[Chewgum]

can't really blame them, they learned from usa

[Computrix]

Now if only we could catch the American politicians doing this on film.

Oh the shitstorms there would be.

[Daniel Smith]

Its pointless trying to turn third world countries into developed democratic ones unless some dramatic event takes place. The people there simply don't have the creed and mentality that people from western nations do.

[DaysBefore]

[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;39764440]Its pointless trying to turn third world countries into developed democratic ones unless some dramatic event takes place. The people there simply don't have the creed and mentality that people from western nations do.[/QUOTE]
Well yeah we can't just copy paste an American style federal republic, but that doesn't mean fair democracy is impossible in a country.

[smurfy]

[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;39764440]Its pointless trying to turn third world countries into developed democratic ones unless some dramatic event takes place. The people there simply don't have the creed and mentality that people from western nations do.[/QUOTE]

Dramatic events did take place; Kenya ratified a brand new constitution in 2010 and this is the first election run by the new Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. Whether it worked is something we're going to find out in the coming months, based on whether there are reports of fraud, and whether they and cases like this are properly investigated

[DanRatherman]

[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;39764440]Its pointless trying to turn third world countries into developed democratic ones unless some dramatic event takes place. The people there simply don't have the creed and mentality that people from western nations do.[/QUOTE]

Not to insinuate anything about your character, but this stinks of borderline racism at the worst and massive misplaced judgement at best.

Africa is struggling to enter democracy because it was repressed and colonized for so many centuries that the institutions and civic structures to support fair and genuine voting aren't in place.

The people themselves are no less capable of learning or practicing democracy than you or I, it's the institutions and cultural enforced standards that cause this.

There was a time in America when many illiterate, underrepresented citizens were given the right to vote and they were violently denied the right by illegal gangs of harassers, bribery, poll taxes, literacy tests, and legal blocks, not by some inherit lack of creed or mentality. Tis' the same in Africa, and not until the governments themselves are stripped of corruption and rot can the people be expected to vote for their interests.

Blame the cause, not the problem itself.

And that's not even touching on the fact that it's never [i]pointless[/i] to democratize a nation. A corrupt democracy is still better than a dictatorship or monarchy in my book.