Business Daily - Kenya Politics - How Political Candidates Are Running Their Campaigns

The elections in Kenya highlighted some of the challenges which political candidates face in running for elective office. With a transparent mandate by the voters for change, candidates ran on platforms promising to deliver change and improve living conditions for the majority of Kenyans. Yet a lot of them were voted out of office before they could even begin to deliver on their claims. Concerns ranging from corruption and fees in government to the quality of education offered by public colleges prompted the opposition to call for a transparent election procedure Neal Kwatra. One of those challenges that opposition politicians had was how to access private information so they can correctly run their campaigns.

Campaign managers and IT managers confronted some of their greatest hurdles in safeguarding confidential information. They have been forced to turn to external agencies to assist them protect their information. Experts in the IT industry provided services like password protection to maintain mails, folders, as well as other documents protected from any hack attempts. Concerned Republicans filed tens of tens of thousands of complaints throughout the course of their elections because of privacy issues surrounding the email and campaign information.

Concerns about privacy were so severe that the presidential campaign manager decided to limit the usage of email. Instead, news releases and societal networking postings were the only kinds of communication that would be tolerated. The limited use of email helped the campaign managers to construct a strong core group of reliable community volunteers to handle the day to day tasks. The increased workload of having to manage a huge database, and campaign staff to manually deal with the database created it difficult to meet the tight deadlines. With limited funds, the campaign manager needed to make sure all deadlines were met, maintaining little room for mistake.

Since the Kenya election obtained near, the safety situation in the country worsened. Civilians were forced to flee their homes seeking safety. When government forces retook control of the airportsthey fired on people who were outside their compounds. When armored vehicles rolled into Mombasa to take charge of the coast, they fired on residential buildings . As these events were happening, the major political contenders introduced an aggressive propaganda offensive against incumbent President Mwai Kibaki. Some took the side of this opposition.

A number of the writers composing in Nairobi's university media were threatened with arrest by law enforcement if they were to continue their criticism of their winners. The authorities cracked down on peaceful protesters calling for change in the surveys. Since the protests grew in size, the police moved into the central areas of the city, clearing homes and killing scores of peaceful protesters. The press was bombarded with information of the turmoil, and then PRESIDENT KIMOHAIGEA declared a state of crisis.

The situation remained tense for a different month, as the governmental advisors tried to figure out a way to hold the market together. The main article in Business Daily explained that Kibaki had accepted responsibility for the chaos, but that he had a long and exhausting road ahead of him. He needed to rebuild the bridges that were destroyed during the violence, and to revitalize the economy. The major article continued that although Kibaki had inherited a"poisoned chalice," there were still several deep wounds which had to be tended to before elections may be held. Political consultants were left trying to determine how to run a nation while everyone else ran for election to the Senate and the Presidency.