Is there not a danger, though, that Ballot Monkeys, like Spitting Image and The Thick of It before it, will exacerbate the prevailing sense of cynicism about politicians?
Though ballots are still being counted, it looks certain the Socialist Party, revamped successor to the Stalinist communist party, will, with its allies, have at least half the seats in the 155-seat parliament after a second round of voting on July 6th.
For the first time since February, violent demonstrations by opposition supporters erupted this week in Nairobi's slums, sparked by news of the talks' breakdown.Most local and foreign election observers agree that, though ballots were stuffed on both sides, Mr Kibaki stole the decisive votes to squeak in for a second presidential term.
"Let's not forget, though, that ballots are already being cast across much of the country between absentee ballots and early voting," said Mark Hamrick, senior economist at Bankrate.com.com
In practice, though, the ballots are carefully managed by the Kremlin, and are won handily by sanctioned candidates who receive support from the government and state-controlled news media.
"Aren't they going to boycott those elections, though, because the ballot got messed up?" he asked.
In the end, though, the ballot question says more about the character of politics than about the character of Gingrich.
If the interval feels somehow shorter, it is because competition for the top job hardly ceased, even though no ballot was held.
For one thing, confusing though the ballot might have been, "there is nothing illegal about that ballot," said James Holland, a lawyer who worked as a poll watcher for the Democrats on voting day.
