Congratulations to Kenyans on a peaceful resolution and Happy Easter.
First comment: we do all see that election violence in Kenya is not inevitable; what happened in 2007 has identifiable causes even if they have not been acknowledged or addressed, primarily the conduct of various politicians. People in Kenya do not simply run out and start killing their neighbors because their side lost an election. Having a credible Court helps a great deal, thanks to the passage of the new Constitution after all these years; kudos to those that made it happen through years of struggle.
Second: I am very proud of AfriCOG for carrying forward a tremendous amount of work in an unconscionably short amount of time to show that there were many unanswered questions about how the election was conducted and why, and how the votes cast at the polling stations were transformed into the March 9 “final results”. They carried a burden that should have been borne by an objective and independent IEBC, rather than facing a united front of the Government of Kenya aligned against scrutiny.
Third: I assume the Court announced what they agreed on unanimously, which was that the outcome was to deny the petitions. Whether or not all six justices individually agreed is something that we will probably never really know, but we will have to wait for the Court’s opinion in two weeks to learn more. Given the short amount of time and the schedule they have already been on, I suspect we will not get as much detail then as many have hoped for, but we will have to see.
Fourth: The Court ruled that each side was to bear its own costs–not the ordinary practice. I think this disposes of the claims by some on the Government side that the ruling indicates that the challenges were not substantial.
A simple question of what Kenyans chose to expect of and hope for themselves really, for them to answer.
Everyone is tired, no question. Most Kenyans are poor, and the breakdown of the IEBC process caused loss in the economy which hurts poor Kenyans the most. At the same time, the short term value of sweeping another electoral commission fiasco under the rug would be balanced by a huge cost in terms of the dreams of democracy that seemed to have been achieved in the 2002 vote.
The situation regarding the vote is less clear than in 2007, but the meaningful ability to go to court exists this time, unlike in 2007. Should the legal process be shelved now that it is finally available–and if so, will it be available again?
Okay, congratulations are in order for a great job by presiding officers and polling clerks, and incredibly patient voters at the polling centre where I spent the late afternoon and on until finishing the presidential count and posting the signed off results on the door to be photographed at the stream I was covering.
Everyone got better at adapting to the absence of the technology and the cumbersome process and voters moved much faster through the remaining lines in late afternoon and early evening. Having stood in the hot son all day in huge lines surely motivated everyone to get done, but essentially no grousing was to be heard where I was at that point.
Turnout at the stream I closed was 626 valid votes cast for president from 755 registered voters. So over 80%. The boxes were jammed full of ballots but the system worked. Totals for president were Odinga 433, Kenyatta 170, Mudavadi 8, Kenneth 7 and the rest less. Dida was the only presidential candidate in that stream to get 0.
One big challenge is slowness of process–certainly no surprise at all which is why my civil society colleagues asked that the contingency plans for this be announced ahead of time by the IEBC (electoral commission). Poll openings at 8-10am appear common in Nairobi rather than scheduled 6am–again no surprise given the logistics involved. It certainly appears that in most cases a paper rather than electronic poll book is in use. Further it appears that complete absence of working electronic BVR for voter identification is common. Some polling streams never received hardware at all; others received too little or found it unusable for whatever reason.
Wholly manual voting then is normal, even though the voter registration was truncated to provide for the use of BVR. Given that the voting is inevitably slow and the turnout is huge, I heard from one fellow observer of polling station workers just taking down names of people who presented IDs and allowing them to vote because it would take too long to try to find and check off names on the paper lists.
The voters are being in general extremely patient with hours of pre-dawn queuing and waiting in hot sun. Ordinary Kenyans in Nairobi certainly are demonstrating both peace and a commitment to the voting process itself.
The unexpected problem, to me and people I have spoken with, is that the ballot boxes were getting close to full with only a relatively small percentage of voters having voted. Presiding officers indicated no backup capacity, but were shaking the boxes to settle the cast ballots..
I covered the opening of a Nairobi polling centre this morning.
Loose general impressions in comparison with 2007: pre-opening lines seemed even bigger than 2007; large numbers of people got out to que in the pre-dawn; actual voting quite slow as should be expected with new and complicated process and six ballots versus three. There was some stream of periodic boisterousness from people waiting and concerned by bottlenecks–things were quiter in 2007.
One thing that annoyed me was to see that the ballot papers are all white paper except for the color on the front only to correspond with the specific race (i.e. “purple” for woman’s representative to National Assembly). This means when you fold the six ballots for secrecy and to drop them in the color-coded box they look the same. My civil society colleagues raised this issue, among many, with the IEBC. The IEBC reported to one member of the civil society coalition who then circulated the response, that the cheaper ballot papers colored only on one side were only for the “mock election” testing, and that today, voters would have the intended fully colored paper.
Apparently not so. Not that the problem in itself is of such magnitude perhaps, but the quality of the information and means of communication from the IEBC were lacking on this point. And of course it would be good to know, even though it will be too late, what happened in the procurement process to cause this.
Enjoyed meeting diplomatic observers from the Danish Embassy and the Eritrean Foreign Ministry.
Even though I’m committed to not attempting to “cover” the Kenyan presidential campaign remotely, yesterday’s debate was one of those big moments in various respects that begs some comment from anyone writing about Kenyan politics and governance.
As far as the election itself, I don’t expect a major impact from the debate or anything specific said. Most voters have made up their minds during the course of the two and a half years that the campaign has been the primary focus of Kenya’s pols. The biggest election variable I would expect would be turnout and neither of the two contenders who could actually win at the end of the day stumbled badly enough or scored enough points in this debate to have a dramatic effect.
Several things stand out for me, however. First is national pride. There is a sense of “joining the big leagues” and capturing an international stage as a modern democracy that Kenyans take pride in here. Sports has been the most similar national rallying point otherwise, and the London Olympics was a disappointment so it is good to see Kenyans have a point of positive recognition as Kenyans. Unfortunately, it comes so late in the campaign that the opportunity for this positive spirit to make a major difference in the preparation for voting and the more general groundwork for the election is limited. Tensions are already high because the realization is sinking in that the election is a big challenge and there will be some problems.
From talking to friends in Kenya and following things I do believe that there is some real value to the determination of many Kenyans to try to prevent the country from being perceived to make a negative spectacle of itself through violence and it makes sense to me to hope for some incremental benefit to this sort of positive pre-election publicity. Nonetheless, the overall amount of election-connected violence in the year before the vote was lower in 2007 in some respects, and people voted very peacefully and in large numbers. When violence occurred after the vote, the vast majority of Kenyans, especially those who actually voted, did not participate. So I don’t think you can measure the risk of violence by the overall sentiments of the population. Energy is much more wisely spent on preparation than prognostication.
A related point to me is that this debate simply shows the world the level of technological and economic development that exits in Nairobi, particularly in the media. The country was very much ready for this in 2007, and in some ways it seems more surprising that this didn’t happen in 2007 than that it did in 2013. More than anything it reflects, to me, the different dynamics of not having an incumbent seeking or planning to stay in office.
The second major impression for me was how the debate showed the disfunction of Kenya’s political parties at a national level. Without established major parties of some coherence other than as platforms for individuals, we end up with six candidates, then eight by court order at the last minute, and almost all the post-debate discussion centered on the contest for power among the individuals or the event of having the debate itself, rather than on anything of real substance about what one candidate believably could accomplish versus another. Congratulations are due more to Kenya’s media than to the political process or the candidates or parties it seems to me.
Some of the other things commented on widely were less significant to me, perhaps because my expectations of what could be possible in Kenya are higher. Martha Karua on stage was not a big moment in my book. She will rank significantly less of a factor in 2013 than Charity Ngilu did in 1997. Karua’s big moment in national leadership was her role as Kibaki’s lion(ess) facing off with Ruto at the Kenyatta International Conference Center December 28-30, 2007, and facing off with both the ODM side and Kofi Annan in the (generally unsuccessful) mediation afterwards prior to the February 28 post-election settlement signed by Kibaki and Raila. She is a strong capable female lawyer, but she doesn’t have an obvious constituency as a candidate for president of Kenya at this point and I don’t see her presence at the debate or her fortunes in this election as a proxy for the general status of women in politics in Kenya.
More striking is the idea of someone facing ICC trial for “crimes against humanity” this spring on stage on an equal footing and an understood stature as one of the two candidates who could become president. That to me is the greatest novelty of this debate.
*The IEBC is also highly rated by Kenyans. Over 90 per cent of respondents said they have confidence in the IEBC, and a similar number believe that the IEBC is independent enough to conduct the next elections. However, there are concerns that the IEBC has been inconsistent with deadlines. While the eventual levels of registration achieved are respectable by any standards, the Commission had to lower its targets and expectations on voter registration to what was achievable. Furthermore, the requisite managerial capacity of the IEBC to conduct elections is yet to be properly tested. Elections comprise several tasks, all rolled into one major task, and carried out in a few days. On account of this, the Commission should carefully test and review its systems and address any weaknesses before the actual date of the election. This is important to ensure there are no feelings of false security.
*Confidence in the police and in political parties remains relatively low compared to the Judiciary and the IEBC. Although public confidence in the police and political parties is relatively low, the appointment to of an Inspector General of Police alongside the promise to undertake fundamental reforms is likely to draw public trust. Gaining this trust is critical, given the poor level of preparedness that the police have shown in halting the violence taking place in some parts of the country.
*Political parties continue in their old ways; some are allegedly recruiting members through fraud. Parties are still tied to individuals who founded them, and some are still based on ethnic identities and loyalties. As a result of this party primaries conducted in January failed to demonstrate any clear break with the past. The behaviour of political parties has detracted from requirements of the Political Parties Act, 2011, and the Elections Act, 2011, which legislators have mutilated or watered down to serve their political survival interests.
*Party hopping, formation of alliances by elites who do not consult members, and founding parties on ethno-regional platforms is happening in spite of the law and the new Constitution. Unfortunately, responsible public officials are yet to apply sanctions on political parties and the key leaders. Without injurious consequences for their actions, politicians will continue ignoring the rule of law and by that weaken the foundation of a credible election.
Following up on my last post noting the FRIDE study assessing democracy assistance in Kenya, here is a paragraph from a paper I drafted for the "briefing book" for our IRI 2007 election observation delegates. This is an example of the challenges faced in seeking to bolster female candidates while staying in graces with the powers that be:
While we at IRI try to train women candidates to do the most that they can with the least resources, and to find non-traditional sources of funds, the reality is that Kenyan political culture places heavy financial demands on those seeking office—from the fact that vote buying is extremely common, accepted and expected, to the fact that there is very little “free” or “earned” media available for races below the presidential level.
Political party primaries to select candidates for Kenya’s March national elections have been fraught with irregularities, disorganization and disgruntled losers, increasing the chances of conflict during the upcoming vote, analysts said Friday.
That’s bad news for those trying to avoid a repeat of what happened after Kenya’s 2007 elections, when a dispute over who won the presidency led to weeks of violence that left more than 1,000 people dead. The primary voting this week did little to instill confidence that officials are ready for another national vote.
. . . .
Kennedy Masine, an official of the local Election Observer Group, described Thursday’s attempt to hold nominations as a “phenomenal failure.” . . .]
I’ve now finished an initial reading of the ICG report released yesterday entitled “Kenya’s 2013 Elections.” It’s an important resource for two key reasons: 1) it is strikingly up to date for this kind of thing, with lots of new information, including footnote references for events even this week; 2) it is relatively comprehensive, covering a lot of ground in substantial detail. It gives fair, sober assessment of the status of the major areas of reforms that were identified as needed in the wake of the disaster in 2007-08. I hope it will be updated quickly once things shake out further with the primaries over the next few days.
In fact, you could take this report and prepare a “grade card” for implementation of the “reform agenda” over the course of the Government of National Unity. Without being cynical or fatalistic, it would simply have to be quite low so far. Regardless, by gathering a lot of the information that a lot of us have been thinking about in various areas in one place, the report could also be used as a road map to realistically “play to strengths” in the terms of the existing Kenyan institutions and develop last minute contingency plans and “gap fillers” in those areas where reforms and preparation are clearly going to be getting an “incomplete”, such as policing. Surely it is clear by now that there need to be plans in place for how to provide extraneous security support beyond the Kenya Police Service in the event of a crisis triggered by major failure of the election itself.
An interesting point of reference is the NDI Kenya Pre-Election Mission of May 2012, to see what has been accomplished and not accomplished in the meantime.
