Too much respect and leverage accorded electoral losers

Then, an electoral thief, naked of any democratic intentions, streaked across the country's political landscape, inviting violence and the sudden appearances of sleepy, retired African presidents.

Desmond Tutu, Graca Machel and even the lacklustre Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania all rushed for television cameras in Nairobi as "elder states-people" but more to remind the world that they were still alive than to solve Kenya's self-inflicted wounds. Even former presidents Joaquim Chissano and Ketumile Masire of Mozambique and Botswana, respectively, also rushed there.