The implicit direction and tone were set — ironically — during Jamhuri Day celebrations.

The International Criminal Court cases now behind us, two new bogeymen for the incumbents to rile up their supporters were duly introduced: First, “foreign” and, second, “civil society” interference in the elections.

A month after Jamhuri Day, it is clear those implicit directions have been duly received. First off the mark was the arguably illegal Non-Governmental Organisations Co-ordination Board, set up under the now defunct NGO Co-ordination Act — moved, curiously, under the ambit of the Ministry of Interior.

Its unqualified chair, Fazul Mohamed, acting on his own (since there are no other board members) came down hard on one of the biggest American electoral sub-contractors, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. IFES is, of course, registered in Kenya — but not as an NGO. The bulk of IFES funding goes directly to the electoral commission.

Here the irony is that IFES has proven itself to be notoriously status-quo in the past. Not that doing so saved it from the incumbent’s beady eye. The message was clear: Back off and be quiet if you want to operate here at all.

Moving swiftly along, it was now time for domestic civil society to be sent the same message. Hence the “leaking” of a supposedly internal memo from the supposed NGO Board to its new parent ministry on the largest domestic human-rights organisation, the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

Whose board includes many incumbent irritants, ranging from Prof Makau Mutua to Maina Kiai (for disclosure’s sake, I’m also a KHRC board member). The memorandum called for everything from criminal investigations to account shutdowns on the basis of a whole host of supposed illegalities, all (gleefully) reported on without any due regard for facts.

Since it came from an “official” regulatory body, the thinking went, its contents must be “true.” Well they weren’t. Which brings us to the second instrument, unwitting or otherwise, to deal with “foreign” and “civil society” interference: The media.

It is one thing for social media users to be unaware of ethical basics for journalists: Verification of facts; defamation and libel; etc. It is a whole other thing for the mainstream media to be unaware of these same basics — lending themselves to use as a propaganda tool.

KHRC is currently the host of Kura Yangu, Sauti Yangu, which groups most civil society actors interested in the elections today. Hitting the KHRC was the easiest way to send a message to domestic civil society to also back off.

Meanwhile, a memorandum from the Ministry of Interior to the County Commissioners dated January 8 is worth reading. For reasons of supposed NGO involvement in “nefarious activities,” including “money laundering, diversion of donor aid, terrorism financing, etc” (that’s a direct quote), all the County Commissioners have been ordered to stop NGOs from operating if they’re unlicensed by the supposed NGO Co-ordination Board.

It’s all quite Kenyatta 1/Moi 2.0. Except we’re in 2017. Who would know?

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is Amnesty International’s regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes