Rebecca Wanjiku, April 20, 2009
South Africa made history as the first country in Africa to hold political debate on Twitter, Facebook and blogs, as well as on interactive Web sites that allowed improved interaction with voters.
On a continent where political campaigns are overshadowed by regional and ethnic politics, empty rhetoric, intimidation of opponents, violence and vote rigging, South Africa is following in the steps of U.S. President Barack Obama's technology-driven campaign.
Political-party interactive Web sites with donation links are common fronts for advancing party issues, but the main battleground has been moved to online social media such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook.
The ruling Africa National Congress held a
live debate on Twitter on April 17, discussing issues such as corruption, health care, power and sustainability, the criminal justice system and the economy.
The Democratic Alliance party also uses Twitter to engage voters while Congress of the People (COPE), which broke away from the ANC, has used Facebook as the main space for engaging online users.
While the ANC Twitter debate was applauded as a major development, it was also criticized for isolating the majority of the 16 million voters given that only 5 million of the 45 million South Africans have access to the Internet, according to Research ICT Africa.
Ismail Dhorat felt that hosting the debate between noon and 1 p.m. was likely to exclude the Muslims who consider Friday a holy day. He notes
in his blog that he received a response from the ANC Twitter debate organizers within a few minutes.
Tash Chapman, a blogger from Cape Town,
reproduced the issues debated by ANC on Twitter and sought comments from the blog visitors.
The developments in South Africa spurred online debate in Kenya over whether the country is ready to embrace technology in other processes, let alone the voting process.
"I hope the interim chair of the Electoral Commission of Kenya is following events in South Africa," said John Walubengo, a lecturer at the Multi Media University.
ICT expert Wainaina Mungai wondered what happened to the government digitization process that would have set the pace for use of technology in all processes.
"The Ministry of Lands, judiciary, motor vehicle registration department, and the pension department registries are in the process of digitization," said Bitange Ndemo, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication in Kenya.
The census will be conducted later this year, and technology can help in areas where there seems to be an abnormal population size change, said Wesley Kiriinya, an online gaming expert in Kenya.
It takes time to go through the procurement process and fighting resistance from government staff, said Ndemo. "It is not all that easy as I once thought."
However, Ndemo acknowledged that the whole process is held back by Parliament's slow pace in debating and passing the Freedom Of Information bill, which seeks to overhaul the retrogressive official secrets act, which has not been amended since independence in 1963.
Source: Computerworld
