Decisions of President Kibaki from Expected Utility Theory Perspective

Decisions of President Kibaki and Utility Maximization

Introduction

In this paper I look at the decisions of the president of Kenya in the light of the outcomes and his preferences during the 2007 elections. President Kibaki came to power in 2002 under the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC). He successfully dislodged President Daniel Arap Moi from 24 years of power and dictatorship and NARC successfully replaced Kenya African National Union that had held power in Kenya for more than 40 years.

As a president during 2002 to 2007, Kibaki was faced with a set of very important decisions which would have ensured his re-election in 2007. These decisions included: coalition formation, taking over the office of the president in 2002, maintaining or breaking the coalition government, rooting out corruption, helping effecting changes to Kenya’s archaic constitution and finally being decisive about contesting for the presidency during 2007 campaigns.

In this paper I analyze president Kibaki’s preferred outcomes as a preference relation between the following:

• Being re-elected in 2007
• Taking power by force in 2007
• Not being president in 2007).

Caution: I am not connoting in any way that President Kibaki took power by force. However, I acknowledge the fact that the electoral process was flawed. International monitors are presently investigating this anomaly. I then use the von Neumann Morgenstein’s axioms to evaluate Kibaki’s preferences in the light of Expected Utility maximization.
Introduction and background

Emilio Mwai Kibaki is the president of the Republic of Kenya for a second term. He came into power in the year 2002 after a resounding victory that gave him 62% of the votes compared to 31% of the votes won by his closest contendant. He was voted in because he pledged to stem out corruption amongst other vices bedeviling Kenya. He also contested for a second term in 2007 and it is not very clear whether he won or not. But the general consensus in Kenya is that he might not have won the elections. Most of his former allies and cabinet ministers including his vice president were not elected by their constituents. After his first term as the president of Kenya, his popularity had diminished due to fact that his government was not able to deliver on many of its pledges. Despite his popularity problems, Kibaki still managed to maneuver himself back to power and secured a second term as Kenya's president. The electoral process was mired by serious electoral irregularities. His taking of power for a second term, did not go down well with a majority of Kenyans, this later turned into a bloody protest.

About President Kibaki 2002-2007

Mr. Kibaki has many strengths - which has enabled his active political career to span five decades. He is an experienced politician. He had a sound training in economics from the London school of economics. In Kenya he served as follows; 1969-1982: Finance minister, 1978 -1988: Vice president, 1991: Founded Democratic Party, 1992: Third in presidential election, 1997: Second in presidential election. In 2002 he contested successfully for the presidency and was elected.

His election in the year 2002 was made successful with the support of several opposition parties that joined together to support him. He made a pact with these opposition parties that is now popularly commonly referred to as "the memorandum" which provided for an equal share of the government. His main agenda during campaigns was based on a number of promises among them:

· Instituting a new constitution for Kenya within a hundred days of his presidency. The present constitution was inherited from Britain and does not address many of the complexities of Kenya.

· Introducing free primary school education

· Deal sternly with corruption

· Create a 100,000 jobs per year

· Introduce an atmosphere conducive for small and micro enterprises to thrive

· Lead the country to a double digit GDP growth

These items were bought by the electorate and he was voted in as the president of Kenya in 2002. After this election, his challenge became to keep Kenya's first coalition government together. Coming in at a time when Kenya was mired in corruption scandals and beset by economic problems, he was basically seen as "the hope" to bring in the expected change needed by the country.


Kibaki's first cabinet was a careful balancing act with one Minister or Assistant Minister coming from each of Kenya's forty-two areas. His Presidential style was very 'hands-off', unlike his predecessor, who attempted to control everything from the centre. Kibaki's style had the benefit of allowing his Ministers the freedom to manage their departments and introduce much needed reforms. The opposition was not happy with the efforts he had put to fight against corruption. Through numerous investigations and prosecution of cases were carried out, no high-profile figures had been convicted in court on corruption charges.


During his first term as president the Kenyan government took a decision to abolish school fees for primary education. The GDP index rose from 3% in 2003 to 6.7% in 2006. During this time the S&P index for Kenya averaged BB+, the best index ever attained in post independence Kenya. His government also introduced free medical scheme for the poor sections of the community. There were many positive changes that were introduced during his time that were positive for the economic growth of Kenya.

In 2005, the drafted constitution by the government of Kenya was subjected to a referendum dubbed as Kenyan Constitutional Referendum. The electoral commission of Kenya introduced "banana" as a symbol for those in support of the constitution and "orange" for those opposed to it. President Kibaki and some members of his own cabinet supported the draft constitution. The main opposition party with other members of Kibaki's cabinet mobilized a powerful campaign that resulted in a majority of 58% Kenyan voters rejecting the draft. The main issues of contention throughout the drafting of the constitution were over how much power should be vested in the Head of State (the President, in this case). In previous drafts, the powers of the president were reduced to be ceremonial though elected via universal suffrage. An executive Prime Minister would be appointed by the President. However, the final draft of the constitution retained sweeping powers for the Head of State, which were however well checked by other branches of Government, including Parliament.

The consequence of the referendum defeat was devastating for President Kibaki. He dissolved his cabinet and reconstituted it later without the coalition members who were opposed to the draft constitution. These people immediately joined the opposition benches. On the other hand, the failure of the coalition portrayed Kibaki as being dishonest within the Kenyan populace. This coupled with several other government failures made him lose the confidence of the public. On the other hand, this loss, made him concentrate in awarding favours and posts to the members of his community at the expense of the people from the rest of Kenya.

The Electoral Process in 2007

Having gotten away easily with the unfulfilled "Memorandum" pledges and having dealt with the referendum defectors, made President Kibaki to relax. As early as 2006 other parties were openly declaring their stances and interest to run for the presidency. Kibaki did not declare his interest early enough and hence kept his close allies guessing. Political observers say that Kibaki, relied on on the GDP growth from 2002 to 2007 to do the job of marketing him. There was a big state of confusion among his followers. In the long run some of his allies decided to form political parties and others regrouped in the old parties in order to interest him to join. Some of his followers tired with the fact that he was not declaring his stance, shifted and made alliances with the opposition. Three months prior to the elections the president formed PNU which he used to launch his campaign. But this was not good for him as the opposition campaigns had already taken so much root and he had more explaining to do which he did not do.

During the elections, the president scored very well over 97% in his own home town. He lost so many votes in other provinces. He could have been the most favorable candidate because of the economic record but missed it because he did not really concentrate in planning early for his campaigns and tackling the issues that made him unfavorable. Most of his allies in the other provinces were voted out and opposition candidates were elected in their place. The opposition led by his arch rival, Mr. Raila managed to scoop 105 seats out of the total 222 seats. Kibaki's PNU only managed to get 34 seats. He won by a very small margin in an election considered to have had so many irregularities even among the international monitors. As a result of his winning there were violent protests in the areas considered to be opposition strongholds.

Immediately after he was declared as the elected president of the country, Mr. Raila his rival contestant disputed the elections and invited the public to his own swearing in as the "people's choice." The heavy presence of police and military however would not let Raila to proceed with his swearing plans. There were protests protests which turned violent and ugly. In the beginning efforts to bring the two factions to negotiating table were not fruitful but as things got worse, they decided to negotiate. The two leaders chose representatives to the negotiations and at times participated in them.

Solving the Electoral Crisis

It turned out that the protests were not only about the elections but about historical injustices by the "ruling class," distributive injustices, the culture of corruption and deep seated tribalism that had been downplayed for a long time in Kenya. This political crisis saw more than 1000 people dead and 350,000 internally displaced. Both internationally and to Kenya this had never been anticipated. Kibaki and Raila too could never imagine that the crisis could reach this magnitude. The magnitude of this crisis forced the leaders to come together to the negotiation table and each had to move away from hardline positions to a middle ground that entailed forming a coalition government with equal power and responsibilities.

In order to solve the electoral crisis, a US and UK backed AU international mediation team led by the former UN secretary general was deployed into the coutry to help solve the crisis. This team worked on a four item agenda as follows:

• Stopping violence and restoring fundamental human rights and liberties
• Immediate measures to address the humanitarian crisis, promote reconciliation, healing and restoration
• Overcoming the political impasse and crisis
• Paving a step to start a long term solution to historical injustices in Kenya

The whole process of negotiation took a month long. Ending up with an agreement to form a grand coalition.

Tabulation of Some of President Kibaki’s Set of Important Decisions

Mid 2002	Formation of National Alliance of Kenya:	A coalition of few opposition parties but not strong enough to dislodge KANU
Nov 2002	Raila’s Liberal Democratic Party joins NAK to form National Alliance Rainbow Coalition	This coalition was founded on a memorandum of understanding between NAK and LDP. It provided a bigger force to dislodge KANU from power
Dec 2002	Resounding victory for Kibaki	Makes pledges to tackle corruption, revise the constitution and solve unemployment problem
Early 2005	Great corruption scandals involving some members of the cabinet. No major steps taken against the culprits.	Some of the cabinet resign and are reinstated later by the president. Anti corruption officer takes refuge in UK.
Nov 2005	The government loses a crucial constitutional referendum vote	A draft constitution supported by the government is rejected by 58% of the votes
Nov 2005	Official breaking of the coalition and LDP join the opposition	The president officially drops the dissenting coalition members from his government
Nov 2005	A stronger opposition movement is formed under the banner of Orange Democratic Movement	The government downplays the opposition politics. Trusts that its development record and positive growth will speak for themselves to voters.
Dec 2006	The opposition have already chosen their presidential candidates	Nobody is sure whether or not Kibaki intends to run for a second term.
Mid 2007	Kibaki’s followers kept guessing and they form various political parties to woe the president	The president and his cronies weaken some of his strong supporters by allowing disintegration of their parties
Late 2007	The President forms PNU and declares his candidacy	It was already too late. The opposition was already too strong and had placed itself strategically to win the elections.
Dec 2007	Biggest shock for the president out of 222 seats, his party gains only 34.	The president also looses some of his strongest supporters from other regions of Kenya including his vice president. The opposition win 105 seats.
Dec 2007	Though it is widely believed that the Opposition has won the elections, Kibaki is declared the winner	The process was delayed for various days and it is believed that irregularities occurred then. He is sworn in immediately after being declared the winner.
Jan 2008	The president and the opposition refuse to negotiate maintaining hard-line stances	Protests in Kenya turn violent as the two sides maintain their hard-line stances. The death toll shoots to 1000 while IDP’s shoot to 350,000
Feb 2008	The two sides brought together by Koffi Annan on a negotiation table and maintain hardliner stances	The opposition maintains that the president resigns or an election re-run be instituted. The government maintains that it is legitimate. The negotiation process was a difficult and painful process.
Mar 2008	An agreement is reached by the rival factions to form a “grand coalition.”	This process had the effects of making the two sides make enough compromises in order to reach a “reasonable” agreement.

Analysis of the Set of Decisions by President Kibaki

As can be seen from the tabulation of some of the decisions that president Kibaki made at various instances made him a utility maximizer in some occasions a satisficer in other occasions and a boundedly rational decision maker in others. Certainly all decisions made by Kibaki entailed a risk element. It goes without saying that given such conditions he would make decisions which according to him seemed favorable and not take decisions that would be unfavorable.

• Decision one: Formation of National Alliance of Kenya to Dislodge KANU
  
  

This time Kibaki's party was the Democratic Party (DP). It did not have a national appeal and was concentrated amongst the people of his home town and a few others. He joined together with other regional parties NPK led by Mrs. Charity Ngilu and FORD-Kenya led by Musikari Kombo. This small alliance was easily manageable and not so complex but its lack of complexity was its great weakness. The simplicity meant that there parties were not strong enough to dislodge KANU from power given the fact that KANU which was fronting Uhuru had also formed a short term alliance with the NDP led by Raila. The marriage between KANU and NDP was short lived. Later Kibaki's NAK alliance joined with NDP to form NARC.

• Decision two: Formation of a Bigger Coalition; The National Alliance Rainbow Coalition to Dislodge KANU

The NDP who changed their name to LDP soon broke away from their coalition with KANU and proposed a coalition with NAK. The new coalition became known as National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC). A new set of demands however were placed on the NAK-LDP coalition which included a 50-50 sharing of power and a prime minister for LDP. The coalition became monsterish and complex but had the powers to dislodge KANU out of power. The demands of the coalition parties were signed as a deed between the partnering parties and has become popularly known as the "memorandum." (This memorandum has never been released to the public and it is not very clear what its contents were. What I have written here as its terms have been picked from various press articles). However, NARC did win the elections with a resounding victory. After winning, it became hard for the government to fulfill the LDP-NAK "memorandum" pledges. The coalition broke after two and a half years. The breaking of the coalition had greater repercussions for Kibaki as a section of the public lost confidence in him as a person who could deliver on a gentleman's promise. It also earned him negative scores on his ability to manage complexity within the government structures.

• Decision three: Formation of a government of Coalition Government including major and minor parties that dislodged KANU from power

In 2002, after a landslide victory, Kibaki became the president of Kenya. He formed a coalition government that consisted mainly of the parties that brought him to power. However, one issue that had not been foreseen during this time was the fact, the major partner that brought him to power had serious differences from his party. While his party pushed for a government of national unity, LDP was an adent advocate of federalism. LDP on the other hand was seen at the time to contain leftist ideologies while Kibaki’s party was conservative. However, the beginning was rosy then as time went on, staying together on the coalition became a big challenge. In the year 2005, LDP joined with the opposition to influence the government to vote “no” for the government’s proposed constitution. On the same year the coalition broke and LDP joined the opposition ranks in the parliament. Infact the breaking of the coalition (which made Kenya an admirable country among its neighbours) made a majority of Kenyans very sad and the country degenerated into tribal and sectional politics. One important question became.. how much diversity can our African government tolorate. Was the coalition a bad idea from the very onstart. Keeping in mind that the two partners were of completely different ideologies (was there a possibility to achieve consensus despite radical differences)?

• Decision Four: Going slow on corruption

When he assumed office, some great work was done to purge the judiciary of its corrupt staff. This decision was received very well by the public. Several commissions were established to investigate past “grand corruption cases” (Goldenberg, Anglo leasing) Most of President Kibaki's closest colleagues were implicated in some of these corruption cases. Hence, pursuing these cases seemed to be very sensitive and in the long run no much was mentioned of it and it was swept under the floor. Later two of his ministers resigned on account of corruption charges. In condoning corruption, the president knew that he is inviting public rejection but he did not do much on it once some of his close friends were implicated.

• Decision Five: Campaigning in Favor of “a Possibly Losing Draft Constitution”

This draft constitution was as a result of more than seven years of consultation with the public. An earlier draft that was voted for in a place known as “Bomas of Kenya” by provincial and district level delegates was considered to be the most favourable one. As it provided check and balances between the three arms of the government. The government edited this draft and replaced the checks and balances with an “all powerful president.” The president put in so much support in drumming for this draft yet he knew it was a failure from the very start. The public in the end did vote a resounding “no.” This was a great loss for the government that made it lose popularity with the public for being out of touch with the popular needs. The opposition used this occasion to strengthen themselves and place themselves strategically for the next elections in 2007. Of all other mistakes of Kibaki’s government, this was the worst of all and it weakened his government badly. BBC reports indicated that votes during the referendum did show Kenyans voting according to tribal affiliations - this being clear evidence of how the referendum campaigns did split the nation along ethnic lines. Despite realising the ethnicity problems as early as at this time of referendum, President Kibaki continued with his business as usual. Tribalism remains a monster in the Kenyan society today and if not checked it could completely destroy the country. And politicians have learnt the art of using it to their own benefit as it enhances their chances of success in politics but at what expense?... destroying the country of course!! Will tribalism ever give rise to common sense.... maybe yes maybe no... but even the youth are deeply tribal. But something positive is occuring, intermarriages are taking place.

• Long moment of Indecision to re run for the Presidency

The opposition started positioning themselves strategically soon after the debunking of the draft constitution in 2005 November. Kibaki never declared of his intention to rerun for the presidency and so his followers were kept guessing. New parties and coalitions started being formed and tried to lure him to join them as it seems that he was still a strong contender. But all along he appeared undecided. Late 2007, he formed his own coalition PNU and used it to compete for the elections. This indecision too costed him so much as his party only managed to score 34 seats out of 222 seats in the parliament. His party only won in his central province meaning that even as a president he had lost a national appeal. While the opposition managed to get 105 seats. Though it is widely believed that the opposition won, Kibaki is declared the winner and is sworn in without observing any of the usual protocols. There are many answers than questions here.. how come that even as a president, Kibaki had lost a national appeal and could not be able to exhude confidence in his party amongst other communities in Kenya apart from those of his own ethicity? Why did the public reject his 20 ministers, assistant ministers including the vice president? Were there many things that were going wrong that the president knew nothing about? Was there a problem in the political think tank that was advicing the president? How can this minimal win be explained.... where were the advisors?

• Maintaining a hard Stance towards Negotiation

Immediately he was sworn in, there were protests all over Kenya. But the police had been deployed in the suspected “trouble areas,” mainly in the opposition strongholds. They dealt strongly with public protests. After sometime these protests turned really ugly with people turning their anger against members of the President’s ethnic community. Members of the president’s ethnic community also retaliated and Kenya was turning to a real big mess. About a 1000 lives were lost, 350,000 people lost their homes and so much property was lost. All this took place within one month. Up to this time the government refused to negotiate maintaining that it is in power legitimately. The opposition were seen as power hungry monsters trying to outwit a legitimate government elected by the people.

Much of the government’s effort was directed towards quelling the efforts of the opposition in leading any type of a revolution. The opposition on the other hand organized mass protests all over the country which were met with strong force of the police. In the beginning the opposition wanted to take power by force by declaring a parallel government (an announcement to this effect was made on the official opposition website). When this did not work they used mass protests. When these plans were not bearing fruits that is when they resorted to impressing upon the international community to put pressure on president Kibaki to resign as they were not ready to negotiate with a “thief.”

Reflections: Though we in Kenya have refused to acknowledge, severe attrocities were carried out along ethnic lines. It became very clear that ethnicity had assumed dangerous proportions that need to be addressed. If not we are slowly experiencing the demise of Kenya, our beautiful country. The sheer anger, hatred, loss and destruction experienced this time, made us not only lose property but the lives of Kenya. Our children saw this and they were restless in the schools and strikes and destructions became the order of the day. Are we going to let this moment just pass us... without ever coming together to forgive one another. Even if we go round and round, this problem will always haunt us and we shall come back to address it one day. Then why not just do it today.. start the process of creating Kenyans now that we have Kenya.

PERSONAL DECLARATION: Let no personalities or political party ever lead me to cause an injury to another person. I think that the dignity of God is a human being fully alive. The dignity of God is the dignity of every other man... including my countryman hailing from a tribe I do not like.

• Agreeing to negotiate

With international pressure the two parties met on a negotiating table after one month of feud. Both parties had many wounds to heal. The protests had began as post electoral protest, they then assumed various dimensions: historical injustices, corruption, distribution injustices, inter ethnic discomforts etc. There was deep seated arrogance on the side of government negotiators and on the other hand there were instances of blackmail on the side of opposition negotiators releasing information to the press that was not factual. The talks were about to break but Koffi decided to change the strategy and engage the principals and thus the country was saved. The opposition would not any more maintain its call for mass protests as they were hurting the public and rendering the country lawless. The government on the other hand was tired of the “war like” state of emergency that was bedeviling the country. The negotiations were long and tiresome for the entire country but ended up with a formation of a “grand coalition” with equal power stakes between the government and the opposition.

Important Question: What of if the chief negotiator Koffi Annan had not changed his strategy and met the Principals? Could have reached a stable equilibrium by itself? At what cost?

Reflection: A grand coalition has been made and thanks to our two principals (KIBAKI AND RAILA). We hope that in the long run 1. it does not break up-we need to heal Kenya. It should also work to address some of the questions raised in here. 2. We hope it will not become an oligarchy and perpetuate an elite consensus, which is too afraid to touch on sensitive issues affecting the country for fear of breaking up and being seen as a success. 3. Maintaining a coalition is one of the most difficult tasks. The partners are equal and hence so much leeway is given to the parties. This makes it difficult to come up with performance measures as there will always blames and counter blames. So much is left to our principals, if they will work well together, Kenya will find a way of evaluating the performance of this coalition and in the long run Kenya will see that it is possible that different ethnicities can do something that is good for our country together. Hence good perfrormance is chiefly dependent on our most respected principals.

Is President Kibaki a Utility Maximizer: Rational Actor?

If we analyze Kibaki’s set of decisions since the year 2002 when he contested and won the presidency in Kenya. We assume that Kibaki being a utility maximizer would like to re-run again for the presidential election and thus get elected. Hence in order to maximize his utility well by getting re-elected in 2007 his set of decisions date back to the year 2002 when he launched a successful presidential bid. The decisions and activities therefore involved coalition formation, successful dislodge of KANU from 40 years of power, maintaining the coalition government, rooting out corruption, delivering an acceptable draft constitution to Kenya, maintaining a good record of economic growth and development and finally being decisive early enough about re-running for the presidential elections.

I restrict president Kibaki's set of outcomes to two outcomes which are "getting elected in 2007" or "taking power by force in 2007." Caution here, I am not connoting in any way that Kibaki took power by force. According to the Electoral Commission of Kenya he won the votes though very marginally. It is a fact that there were serious electoral irregularities in both the government and opposition areas. An international commission has been deployed to look into the source of this anomaly and we await the results of its work.

Rational choice theory, is a framework for understanding and often formally modeling social and economic behavior. It is the dominant theoretical paradigm in microeconomics. It is also central to modern political science. Models of rational choice assume individuals choose the best action according to stable preference functions and constraints facing them.

The modern utility theory developed by von Neumann and Morgenstein consists of a set of axioms about preferences. It further states that if an individual’s preferences satisfy the specified axioms his or her behavior can be described, or rationalized, as the maximization of his expected utility. The axioms provide a normative justification of the expected utility principle. The axioms are formulated in terms of a preference relation as follow:

A denotes a set of outcomes

≤ or ≥ Denotes preference relations

(x, p, y) is the probability mixture where x is obtained with probability p and y with probability 1-p.

For outcomes x,y,z in A and probabilities p,q ≠ 0 or 1 the following assumptions hold:

A1

(x,p,y) is in A which is known as the closure property.

In the case of President Kibaki above we evaluate his set of outcomes as

(re-elected in 2007, p, taking power by force in 2007).

Whatever the outcomes of the presidential election results in 2007, Kibaki must remain the president of Kenya for another period starting from January 2008 to 2013 December. Hence put simply being re-elected in 2007 is strictly preferred to taking power by force. In order to be re-elected the president had to ensure that he was successful in most of the conditions he was faced on the table above. The major tough condition involved managing an unruly coalition. When managing the coalition did not work he ensured that the economy performed well but his opponents concentrated on other issues in the political landscape. In the long run he did away with a government that had a national outlook that was complex to manage and maintained an oligarchy that was only bent on pleasing the president by hiding some important facts about the political pitch in the country.

A2

Preference relation >. In this case there is a strict preference for re-election.

This second axiom requires that the observed preference or indifference relation to be reflexive, connective and transitive.

(re-elected in 2007 > taking power by force in 2007)

He prefers to be re-elected but if he won’t be re-elected he will take power by force. It is important that the president is re-elected. Re-elections will legitimize his official term as a commander in chief of Kenya. It would also provide him the opportunity to complete his economic agenda for the country. As mentioned above the Kenyan population still liked the president but the opposition in the name of ODM did fabulous campaigns which endeared them to the people. They were seen as champions of the poor and distributive justice. Earlier the opposition launched a successful onslaught that saw the death of the constitution draft proposed by the government. The opposition also used the constitutional debate to build their muscles and ensure that their union was much stronger. The forces behind President Kibaki were acting strategically to find favour with the president instead of looking at the strategy of the opposition. As a result, the president's side after the referendum became much blinder and very sensitive to criticism, asumed a regional perspective hence losing touch with the general populace. The government propaganda machine had a great task to ensure that Kibaki wins. We presume that the stakes were much higher and the president had to win the elections despite the outcome of the voting processes.

A3

[(x,p,y),q,y] ~ (x,pq,y) this is the Reducibility condition

[(re-elected in 2007,p, taking power by force in 2007),q, taking power by force in 2007] ~ (re elected in 2007,pq, taking power by force in 2007)

Getting back to the office of the president is president Kibaki's main objective and no any other outcome will satisfied him. This axiom asserts, in effect that the preferences depend only on the final outcome and their probabilities and not on the process by which they are obtained. The final outcome in this case was very important to Kibaki. Issues of morality are not important in arriving at the final outcome which is simply winning the 2007 elections.

A4

If x ~y, then (x,p,z) ~ (y,p,z) this is known as substitutability assumption

re-elected in 2007 > taking power by force in 2007 then (re-elected in 2007,p, taking power by force) ~( taking power by force in 2007,p, not being president in 2007).

A third outcome “not being president” is introduced in this preference relationships.

This axiom states that if x and y are equivalent then they are substitutable for each other in any gamble.

If we take the proposition the way it is, it means that if Kibaki will not be elected, he will take power by force. In any case winning the elections and taking power by force are substitutable and will enable him to maintain the presidency. Hence if the president is not elected his next prefered outcome will be to take the power by force and this option is prefered to the option of not being the president. Here we see clear transitive preferences the first makes President Kibaki a democrat, the second makes him a dictator while the third just indicates that depending on the outcome of the vote the president will either end up as a democratic choice or a disctator.

A5

If x > y, then x > (x, p, y) > y

This axiom asserts that if x >y then it must be preferred to any probability mixture of x and y, which in turn must be preferred to y.

Certainly in our case “being elected in 2007” is preferred strongly to “taking power by force, which means that it is preferred to any possible probability combination between the two choices and which is in turn preferred to taking power by force. This is an issue of a clear intention. The president preferes o be elected that gives him a stronger mandate than if he came to power through a mix of both being elected and taking the power by force. Striving for legitimacy therefore would make the president really fight hard during the campaigns to ensure that he is elected. Hence in participating at the political campaigns his mind is clearly set... he would like to be elected.

A6

If x>y>z, then there exists a probability p such that y~(x, p, z). Axiom six embodies continuity or a solvability property.

It asserts that if y is between x and z in the preference order (i.e. x>y>z) then there exists a probability p such that the gamble (x,p,z) is equivalent to y.

re-elected in 2007 > taking power by force in 2007 > not being president in 2007. Then there exists a probability that

re-elected in 2007, p, not being president in 2007 is equivalent to taking power by force. Of course suppose that the president is not re-elected? And suppose that he would like to retain the presidency? It is not impossible for him to do so, he can collude with the electoral body or he can use other state machinery to remain in power. He is still the commander in chief even as the country goes to elections and until the new president is sworn in.

Von Neumann and Morgenstein’s Theorem

If axims A1 to A6 are satisfied, then there exists a real valued utility function u defined on A such that:

1. x ≥y iff u(x) ≥u(y)
2. u(x,p,y)= pu(x)+(1-p)u(y)

u is an interval scale, that is if v, is any other function satisfying 1 and 2, then there exists a number b, and a>0 such that v(x)= au(x)+b.

There exists a utility function that the preference order and satisfies the expectation principle.

Conclusion

Having gone through the axioms of Von Neumann Morgenstein, I conclude that Kibaki’s preference ordering in in line with these assumptions. Therefore Kibaki is an expected utility maximizer and his preferences can be presented in the form of a utility function. It is very clear that president Kibaki strongly prefered to be elected over all the outcomes. The other outcomes in our case included taking power by force or not being re-elected. Given a restriction of the three preferences is President Kibaki a rational actor.... I conclude yes.. strongly in favour of being re-elected.

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10. "Kibaki re-elected Kenyan president: official results", AFP (abc.net.au), December 31, 2007. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129125.htm?section=world
11. "Observers criticize poll standards" Daily Nation, January 18, 2008.