Category Archives: media

“Tribute to Dr. Peter Oriare: Media Scholar of Great Repute” and a friend to me, to the International Republican Institute, and to Americans who believe in democracy

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Dr. Peter Oriare

“Tribute to Dr. Peter Oriare, Media Scholar of Great Repute”

“University of Nairobi mourns committed teacher”

My friend, Dr. Peter Oriare, was in his own way one of those who got hurt because of the election misconduct in 2007. I was very sad to hear on my return from Washington that while I was at the African Studies Association meeting, Peter died back in Nairobi.  At 45 he was too young, the proud father of young children.  I would greatly encourage anyone interested in Kenyan democracy to read the tribute and story linked above.

I am thankful to have known and worked with Peter.  I certainly relied on him in Kenya.   Along with the local staff at the International Republican Institute in Nairobi he was one of the people that made my year working in Kenya an experience that I will always treasure.  When I arrived in Nairobi in June of 2007, we had funded only our baseline National Endowment for Democracy programming working with parliamentary candidates and our ongoing USAID polling program for which I was approved as Chief of Party the week before.  The current polling program had been in place since an exit poll for the 2005 constitutional referendum,and had most recently included a public opinion survey from that spring which we were just then briefing to prospective presidential candidates.  Peter worked with Strategic Public Relations and Research and was our primary point of contact with the firm as well as teaching and working to finish his doctorate at the University of Nairobi.

When I took over as the fourth American to lead the IRI office under that 2005 polling program, my ability to do my job depended on Peter’s expertise and continuity. Peter had worked with everyone in the IRI office and had been our primary local polling expert partner since 2000, before the IRI office opened in 2002.  The polling program was touted as a major success story for both USAID and for the International Republican Institute in Kenya and Peter was the single most consistent element.  Peter had a strong relationship not only with IRI and the USAID Democracy and Governance program locally but with others in the international democracy community.  He led important work in media monitoring for the 2007 election that was crucial to the international understanding of the situation in Kenya.

Peter believed in transparency and he advocated internally for release of the presidential “horse race” figures from our September 2007 public opinion survey which showed Kibaki leading when most polls were showing Raila as having pulled ahead, and when our contract with USAID was amended to add the 2007 exit poll, he expected to release it as well.  The established policy reason that IRI did not release the “horse race” numbers comparing the presidential candidates in our pre-election public opinion surveys–that we wanted to support democracy by informing the public, policy makers and politicians with out having a direct impact on the race itself–obviously did not come into play on the exit poll when people would have already voted when it would be released.

I pushed Peter and Strategic hard in negotiating the contract for the exit poll in the fall of 2007.  We had a modest amount of additional funding from USAID, and some money from Dr. Clark Gibson at the University of California, San Diego–and we had overhead in Washington and Nairobi.  Because it was obviously a close race, we needed results that were methodologically sound and statistically valid at the provincial level and not just the national level, to be able to evaluate the presidential threshold of 25% of the vote in five provinces.   I needed substantially more work from Strategic than they had done in the 2002 and 2005 exit polls, which were universally accepted as successful, but in elections that were not as close.  Ultimately we agreed on the additional work for very little additional money given Kenya’s inflation, and the poll was well executed as millions of Kenyas voted peacefully.

The preliminary results called in by cellphone–which were  obtained by USAID and given to the Ambassador on election day–even though such reporting was entirely outside the scope of anything in the USAID agreement with IRI and I didn’t want anything to get out while the polls were still open–had Raila ahead by a margin of roughly 8 points.  When the actual surveys were obtained and coded and necessary adjustments made for situations such as the seizure of some questionnaires by police–some of which were recovered and some not–the final figure was roughly 6 points.  This was the number in Nairobi in mid-January, 2008 with all the surveys back and coded.  That  was the number on February 7 when someone “inside the Beltway” in Washington decided to throw Peter under the bus by publishing internationally a statement from IRI that poll was “invalid” after State Department and USAID officials were questioned about it by then Subcommittee Chairman Feingold at his hearing in the Senate.  That was the number when I turned over the original questionnaires to my successor in Nairobi in May 2008; the number when the results were released in July at CSIS in Washington by UCSD after IRI’s six month embargo; and the number soon thereafter when the New York Times called me working on their story and asked for an interview.   It was still the number when IRI released the results in August–reconfirmed by a firm in Oklahoma–the day before the UCSD testimony at the Kriegler Commission;  and it is still the number  today, when the poll has been used in published work from scholars in Asia and Europe, as well as in Africa and the United States.

Peter had every right to be proud of his work on this exit poll and it was rightly noted by Rosemary Okello in her tribute as a part of his positive legacy for Kenyan democracy, and for polling and scholarship everywhere.

This is what I wrote in recommending Peter on Linked-In in 2009:

Peter is a true professional, with a strong commitment to his work and high values. He is calm under pressure. He offers deep knowledge and experience and I would be very pleased to have the opportunity to work with him again in the future. July 6, 2009

Top qualities: Personable , Expert

Ken hired Peter in 2007, and hired him/her more than once.

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Upcoming: Panel on challenges to independent media in East Africa

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For readers in the Washington area, Tuesday morning from 10:00 – 11:30am, the Center for International Media Assistance, the National Endowment for Democracy Africa Program and the Solidarity Center will be hosting a roundtable discussion entitled “Independent Media in East Africa: Democratic Pillar in Peril?”  Looks like an interesting event with a distinguished panel:

New challenges to independent media are emerging in East Africa. Recently passed anti-terrorism and information laws allow governments to harass and imprison journalists with impunity. Under these new laws, six journalists have been arrested in Ethiopia since June 2011, and Somali journalists are facing tremendous threats covering conflict and famine in their country. How do local media react when their fellow journalists come under attack? How can an independent press play its crucial role as a pillar of democracy and overcome challenges in places such as Sudan and South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya? The discussion will also examine the development of unions and media associations as well as the international donor community’s role in supporting independent media in East Africa.

Information and registration here.

Happy Birthday to USAID and Walter Cronkite

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USAID turned 50 today.  The agency began in the first year of the Kennedy Presidency and has been an important part of his legacy and a symbol perhaps of American optimism and hopeful leadership in development.  It was a product of those years between Sputnik and Vietnam when America felt challenged, but seems to have retained a certain expectation of effectiveness, and faith in the ability to set and achieve goals as a country.  1961 was the independence era in Africa, and the time of the  “airlift” of students including Wangari Maathai and President Obama’s father to the United States.  It was also in the rising time of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and its is clear in hindsight that we were not yet fully prepared psychologically for complete African sovereignty in the context of the Cold War–but at least it was a beginning.

Walter Cronkite, a worldly man of Middle America, turned 45 on USAID’s first day.  As part of a generation born during one World War and in his 20s in the next, Cronkite I expect would have approved.  The next year he became the anchor of the CBS Evening News and soon “The Most Trusted Man in America”.  (This was before the Rupert Murdoch era in the United States . . .)

In 2011, the Cold War is long over.  Osama bin Laden is dead.  Democracy is stirring in the most unlikely places and the world is far more prosperous than it was 50 years ago.  We have been learning a lot about development.  We are starting to feel challenged again by a rising China–perhaps this will provide the inspiration and motivation for a renewed ability to look hopefully beyond the next election cycle into a future in which we have helped to solve some of the world’s problems.

From the official history at the USAID website:

On September 4, 1961, the Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act, which reorganized the U.S. foreign assistance programs including separating military and non-military aid. The Act mandated the creation of an agency to administer economic assistance programs, and on November 3, 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

USAID became the first U.S. foreign assistance organization whose primary emphasis was on long-range economic and social development assistance efforts. Freed from political and military functions that plagued its predecessor organizations, USAID was able to offer direct support to the developing nations of the world.  (emphasis added)

News in the News

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One more player is coming to the East African media marketplace.

Al Jazeera to open Swahili service (Daily Maverick):

This is big news for the East African media market, which is already the most vigorous in Africa, and is a huge step for the Qatar-based news outlet. Al Jazeera’s rise to prominence has been meteoric. . . .

Its move into the Swahili market is part of a strategy of global expansion, which includes plans for a Turkish Al Jazeera and a Spanish Al Jazeera. Its presence is likely to raise the standards of journalism in the region, as they’ll be able to pay proper money for content. Swahili is one of Africa’s most popular languages. It is estimated that more than 100 million people speak Swahili (even though only 5 million use it as their first language).

Anyone interested in the state of the media in Kenya needs to read a report from AFRICOG: “AFRICOG Investigative Journalism Fellowship Report on Media Corruption”. A lot of what I see in the Western and International media about the media in Kenya and East Africa in general reminds me of a lot of what was reported about Kenya’s “free public education” system until scandals surfaced. Simply superficial. Yes, on the surface, the media in Kenya is relatively free and relatively robust–but you don’t understand how life becomes “news” in Kenya without appreciating corruption and other influences beneath the surface.

“Partnerdship”

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Who says the State Department doesn’t have a sense of humor?

INSIDE THE BELTWAY

Open Government Partnerdship

WASHINGTON, DC, July 12 – The U.S. hosted the first high-level meeting of The Open Government Partnership (OGP), a new international initiative aimed at securing concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, increase civic participation and fight corruption. The OGP will also strive to harness new technologies to make government more open, effective, and accountable. A multi-stakeholder International Steering Committee for the OGP, co-chaired by the United States and Brazil, is comprised of government and civil society groups, representing countries from around the world, including Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. “…There is an undeniable connection between how a government operates and whether its people flourish,” Secretary Clinton said in remarks during the high-level meeting. “When a government invites its people to participate, when it is open as to how it makes decisions and allocates resources, when it administers justice equally and transparently, and when it takes a firm stance against corruption of all kinds, that government is, in the modern world, far more likely to succeed in designing and implementing effective policies and services. It is also more likely to harness the talents of its own people and to benefit from their ideas and experiences, and it is also more likely to succeed investing its resources where they are most likely to have the best return.”   Full Text» The Open Government Partnership»Conversations With America: Open Government Partnership»Spurring International Momentum for Open Government»OpenGovPartnership.org»

From the Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of Public Liaison: Public Liaison, Intergovernmental Affairs and Regional Media Outreach, E-news, volume 5 – 2011, Issue 25, July 26, 2011

Observations about the Kenyan and American Presidential Cycle for 2012

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-Four years ago I was just moving to Nairobi.  The “Housing Bubble” was still inflated, along with the broader “Finance Bubble”.   The Bush Administration had become deeply controversial and substantially unpopular, in particular because of Iraq, along with some of the whole Jack Abramoff/Tom Delay scenario in Congress that helped the Democrats retake the House in 2006.

-At that time, neither John McCain, the long time chairman of the International Republican Institute, for which I was going to work, nor Barack Obama, the young, fresh-faced green black Senator from Illinois, looked to the pundit class to be likely nominees for President.  McCain had stumbled from his incumbent front-runner status, with various others seeming to emerge.  Obama, obviously, needed to cap his expectations at a running mate slot if he did really well.

-It was interesting that Obama’s father had been from Kenya, and that Obama had written a memoir in part about growing up essentially without that father, but with some awareness of who he was and some communication, and then finally a visit to Kenya as a young adult.  It would never, ever have occurred to me to imagine that later, many millions of Americans could imagine that Senator Obama had been born in Kenya, smuggled into the United States secretly and his story concocted as part of a vast conspiracy by someone for some purpose deeply dangerous to the country.  That all these years his birth in Kenya had been known in Kenya but kept secret in the United States.

-Now that the President has gone to some lengths to make a very high profile release of the State of Hawaii’s actual “long form” certificate to supplement his previous release of a copy of his own birth certificate, the politicians who tried to advance their careers by enabling this nonsense have been damaged and the President’s re-election prospects improved.

-So why the exact timing?

It seems to me that Obama’s people would likely have assumed initially that the whole “birther thing” would die down, rather than grow, after he took office.  I would have.  I wouldn’t have been cynical enough about Republican politicians to realize how many would refuse to disown it or would even tacitly encourage it.

At some point it must have become clear that it should be addressed for the 2012 campaign.  So why wait so long?  Maybe the “rope a dope” factor.  Why interrupt “silly season” among people who are obviously going to be attacking you on some basis, until the time that more independent minded people are starting to think about who to vote for next year?

The conventional wisdom in the media seems to stick with the narrative that this was a “response” to Donald Trump dictated by the traction Trump was suddenly getting through the media.   Maybe, but I haven’t noticed the sourced reporting on this, as opposed to the repetition of assumption from circumstantial observation.  I think this may well be wrong.   Because the media seems to have had no idea about something a lot more consequential going on at the same time as the rump Trump boomlet: the preparation for the raid on the Bin Laden compound.

To me, it would seem that it was necessary for Obama to release the “long form” birth certificate to protect himself, and the country, from the kinds of things that might be said if the Bin Laden raid had failed. Jimmy Carter’s re-election was riding on the 1980 attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran–likewise the Bin Laden raid was a singular high risk event in U.S. domestic politics.

-Meanwhile, the Kenyan 2012 campaign is gearing up as well, with the ICC cases from the last election still in their early stages. Even with the birther issue behind him, I would expect that Obama will want to minimize any personal contact with Kenyan controversies until after his own election, relying on Secretary Clinton and his new ambassador, Scott Gration.

Khalwale Re-takes His Seat in Ikolomani–Tribal and Presidential Implications?

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“The Bull Fighter Dr. Bonny Khalwale gored his way to parliament after emerging victorious in the completed Ikolomani parliamentary by-election with provisional results indicating to have won by 13208 votes against his rival Benard Shinali 10702 and 293 votes for Kizito . . .” reports West FM.

Here is a Friday, May 30 editorial from West FM ahead of Monday’s vote, articulating a view of Luhya tribal interests in the by-election–well worth a read to appreciate a major strain of thought in Kenyan politics, even after the 2007-08 tragedy:

“The Ikolomani bye-election to determine whether the Luhya community has the self belief and courage to go for the presidency of Kenya in 2012“

The new Constitution secures the right of all Constituencies in Kenya to receive equitable development regardless of which party the Constituency votes for.  The template of dangling development projects using tax payers’ resources as a bait for the electorate to vote for a party is unconstitutional and plain corruption and impunity.

The Ikolomani Constituency Bye-election to be held on 23/05/2011 is not about which of those competing candidates will or will not bring development to the Constituency.   Which development can whoever is elected deliver in the remaining twelve months before the next General Elections slated under the new Constitution for August 2012?  The Ikolomani Constituency Bye-election is being quietly watched for what its results will portend and give bearing as to how the 2012 Kibaki succession shapes up in the coming months.

.  .  .  .

A vote for the ODM Candidate will be a clear statement that Western Kenya is not interested in and has no confidence in itself to be a contender for the 2012 Presidential Race.  That will be as clear as daylight granted the ODM Presidential baton  for 2012 is irretrievably in the “safe” and hands of Hon. Raila Odinga and let nobody fool you that he will surrender it to anybody come rain come sunshine unless Hon. Raila leaves that party.

Yes the ODM vote will be the loudest confession by Western Kenya through the people of Ikolomani as a microcosm that the Luhya Community is happy and contended to play second, third or fourth fiddle going into the 2012 Presidential Race.

A vote for New Ford Kenya in the By-elections on the other hand will be the loudest statement that Western Kenya and the Luhya Community is in the race for the Presidency of Kenya in 2012 regardless of who will be its eventual flag bearer whether it be Hon. Musalia Mudavadi or Hon. Eugene Wamalwa.  A vote for New Ford Kenya will be the voice of the people of Western Kenya to their present crop of leaders that they must put their act together and present Western Kenya’s and the Luhya Community’s bid for the Presidency in 2012 just as the Kalenjin Community has Hon. William Ruto as representing their Presidential ambition and the Kikuyu Community has Hon. Martha Karua and Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta, the Kamba Community have Hon. Kalonzo Musyoka and the Luo Community has Hon. Raila Odinga.

The question at the moment is not whether or not Western Kenya’s Presidential contender will win or not in 2012 but that for Western Kenya to ever hope for the Presidency or anything else it must first be in the race or in the competition and put in an application for the job through a candidate.  And the people of Ikolomani Constituency know the name of the game through their colorful sport of bull fighting and where one cannot win a bull fight unless of course one has his bull in the contest, in the Arena, in Malinya Stadium.

The Ford People Candidate in the Ikolomani Constituency Bye-election is the only candidate whose candidature does not spill into the permutations of the 2012 Presidential Elections of Kenya and may be that one can say he should be judged without the blinkers of the 2012 Presidential race and therefore whether or not he has the ability to discharge the function of an MP.

Yes, all watchers of how the Presidential Race, jigsaw for 2012 will pan out are watching how Western Kenya’s dress rehearsal (through the Bye-election) of what role it will play, whether it will be a player or part of the cheering crowd, what political weight, value, price to assign Western Kenya in the political alliances, coalitions that will shape the 2012 Presidential Race.

The people of Ikolomani Constituency will on 23/05/2011 die the cast for Western Kenya and the Luhya Community as to whether the region has the ambition , gravitas and whether it will have its own veritable bull in Kenya’s 2012 Presidential Race or not.  In 1995 when Ikolomani Constituency held a similarly charged bye-election that Benjamin Magwaga won, it had the choice of the late Michael Wamalwa Kijana representing the Luhya Community’s urge for the Presidency on one side and President Moi on the other and the Ikolomani people chose President Moi. . . .

See the updated Wikipedia entry for quick analysis, and see Opalo’s Blog for the thoughts of a diaspora political science graduate student at Stanford.

A Closer Look at Journalism and NGOs

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Karen Rothmyer has a “terrific and necessary” piece in the Columbia Journalism Review headlined “Hiding the Real Africa; why NGOs prefer bad news” about stereotyped images of Africans in poverty in the U.S. media and the influence of NGOs working on aid projects on this coverage (with comments from Jina Moore and I so far).  Linked is the full research paper for Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.

Also at CJR is a review of Rebecca Hamilton’s Fighting for Darfur:  Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide.

In The Star Andrea Bohnstedt explains that “Kibera Slum is Now the face of Kenya Abroad.”

In “Good News is No News, and that’s Bad News”, Terrance Wood writes at the Development Policy Blog that the media cover aid failures and problems, rather than success stories, and that this gives a misleadingly negative impression about the effectiveness of aid.

“Social media and the Uganda election 2011”

Djibouti Suspends USAID-funded Election Observation (with update)

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UPDATE Mar 16: Following the reports here, the election observation team was ordered out of the country, reports the Financial Times.

With Djibouti’s presidential election scheduled for April 8, and opposition parties announcing plans to boycott and continue protests, the government has come out against an election observation mission that has been working since last fall.  The Financial Times story is here:

Djibouti has told the United States that an independent election observer mission is “illegal” and suspended its partnership with the US-funded mission.

The news came amid reports that the north-east African coastal state had arrested two opposition leaders on Friday.

Democracy International (DI), which has a $2.2m, eight-man team in the tiny strategic state, provides the only international technical assistance and observation group in the country, which has been ruled by the same dynasty since independence.

The increasing visibility of the Djibouti’s anti-democratic leanings is awkward for the US, which relies on the country for its only military base on the continent and last year doubled aid to the country, funding DI’s Djibouti operation. Many of its 3,000 troops are dedicated to fighting piracy and terrorism in neighbouring Somalia.

.  .  .  .

Sources say efforts to resolve the dispute with DI continue. “We have not closed up our operations, (but) we are not undertaking any active programming,” DI co-founder Glenn Cowan told the Financial Times, adding that the group still plans to observe the elections.

Today’s Bloomberg report is here.  The Washington Post reported on the mission in February, noting that no foreign journalists were working in the country. The story includes relatively positive comments by the mission head on the government’s approach to allowing protests and the political climate.

Five Years After the Kenyan Government’s Raid on the Standard and Two Years After the Oscar Foundation Murders, Impunity Reigns and a “Local Tribunal” for Post Election Violence Remains a Pipe Dream

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As I have previously written, I have to miss the frenzy of reading the Wikileaks diplomatic correspondence, but the Kenyan newspapers are full of articles related to a few of the cables newly leaked.  Much of this is Kenyan politicians dishing on each other to curry favor at the U.S. Embassy, and probably in some cases news to Kenyan voters who don’t have the same access to their leaders as Americans do.

One of the main impacts of the leaks in Kenya, that I would not necessarily have realized, is the degree to which the well-publicized cables give the Kenyan media cover to report facts that are quite well known but that they would not otherwise dare print for fear of libel suits and official displeasure.  Certainly much of what Kenyan politicos tell the Embassy they will have told reporters, or reporters will have learned independently, but couldn’t report until the State Department’s internal “news bureau” was stolen and partially put out on the internet.

Some of the material dates back to the Government’s raid on the Standard media house on March 2, 2006.  Enough of this outrageous incident (really series of incidents) has long been well known that in any country with leadership at all serious about press freedom and the rule of law there would be some people in jail.  Nonetheless, total impunity for each and every player in all of the multiple criminal acts remains the status quo.  While U.S. Ambassador Bellamy was sharply critical at the time, there is no indication that this has been on the public diplomacy agenda since.

It is in this context that observers of the Kenyan scene have to realize that the notion of a Kenyan “Local Tribunal” that would try the kingpins of the Post Election Violence identified by the Waki Commission report was always a pipe dream.

We have a recent report on the killing of former Foreign Minister Ouko, said to have taken place at State House in Nakuru–no action.  We have the circumstances crying out for investigation in the murders of civil rights activists Oscar Kingara and J.P. Oulo–two years have gone by today with no action.

While I agree completely with the notion that as a wholly conceptual matter, a Kenyan tribunal rather than the International Criminal Court would be the best place to try the suspects for the Post Election Violence, it is also quite clear that that was never going to happen.  The will is simply not there–the Government of Kenya has a well established policy of impunity which has served the interests at stake very successfully for many years.  It will not change of its own accord, or through simple persuasion or jawboning.  A “Local Tribunal” in Kenya, if there ever were such a thing, would be a platform for deal making to preserve impunity, not a court of law.  Because the United States is not a member of the ICC, it may well be that we are not so credible as leading advocates of the ICC as the appropriate venue for the election-related trials–nonetheless, I think we should stop indulging political frivolity in the context of these grave crimes.

Related Post on local tribunal.