Category Archives: NGOs

AfriCOG’s Seema Shah asks in Foreign Policy: “Are U.S. election watchdogs enabling bad behavior in Kenya?”

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UPDATE: See Dr. Shah’s article “Kenya: Supreme Court’s Disappointing Judgement” from Think Africa Press via allAfrica.com.

Stanley Livondo for Senator

From Transitions–the Democracy Lab Blog at Foreign Policy.com:  “Are U.S. election watchdogs enabling bad behavior in Kenya?”:

In recent testimony to Congress, three American non-profit electoral assistance organizations, all of whom worked on Kenya’s general election in March — the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the International Republican Institute (IRI) — reported that last month’s presidential vote was “credible,” thereby negating the still-increasing amounts of evidence that the electoral process was fundamentally flawed. Their view was based largely on a recent ruling by Kenya’s Supreme Court, which upheld the presidential election result. The three groups also cited the “acceptance” of the Court’s decision by presidential runner-up Raila Odinga.

And that’s just where the problems begin.

The Kenyan Supreme Court’s detailed judgment reveals numerous problems. Legal scholars have decried its reliance on questionable outside sources and its lack of academic rigor while civil society groups have lambasted it for its refusal to engage with the vast array of evidence presented. These criticisms cast doubt on the Court’s independence, thereby threatening public confidence in the judiciary.  .  .  .

Meanwhile, Odinga’s call for peace in the aftermath of the ruling is hardly an acceptance of the veracity of the Court’s statement. Rather, he made it clear that he did not understand how the Court could have looked at the “massive malpractices” documented by his team and still deliver its ruling. In fact, he said, “In the end, Kenyans lost their right to know what indeed happened.” His call for Kenyans to move forward should not be confused with a conclusion that the election was free and fair. His recent statement that the IEBC cannot be trusted to run another election says it all.

As part of its testimony, IFES also somewhat condescendingly said, “ultimately, the new Kenyan president, Mr. Kenyatta, was elected by a margin of 8,000 votes, or 7/100ths of a percent of the total votes cast, making it inevitable that the result would be challenged.” This statement implies that a legal challenge was inevitable, presumably because Odinga would have challenged any close result, even one set in the context of an open, verifiable, and transparent electoral process. The fact remains, though, that the lack of transparency set itself up to be challenged. In fact, the petition against the veracity of the results was brought by civil society groups, (a fact not even mentioned to the U.S. Congress), and focused on the myriad discrepancies, errors, omissions, and inexplicable alterations noted throughout the electoral process.

.  .  .  .

These organizations go on to claim that the main problem with the management of the election was the failure of the electronic voter identification and results transmission systems, which IFES describes as “a failure of project management.” IFES in fact claims that it was “the paper register and paper ballots [which] ultimately…ensured the integrity of the Kenyan election.” What these statements leave out is that both the electronic systems were specifically put in place as critical checks on the manual process. They were meant to prevent instances of multiple voting, ballot box stuffing, and the alteration of the manual forms as happened in 2007. Indeed, the alteration of manual forms was at the heart of the problem in this election as well. These issues seem to go well beyond problems of “project management.”

.  .  .  .

IFES even credits the election commission with ensuring that this election “was not a repeat of the 2007 vote.” Such statements wrongly imply that the default in Kenya is violence. And while it is true that there was very little conflict this time around, the problems with the process were very much a repeat of the last election, minus the politicians’ calls for violence. Instead of praising the election commission, these organizations should have called on them to answer the unresolved questions about the process, especially those related to the voter registry.

Would these sorts of problems be tolerated in the United States? It seems doubtful. Why is Kenya being held to such a low standard? Given the context of Kenyan electoral history and the country’s efforts to reform the electoral system, it is even more important to point such weaknesses out. Endorsement of this election by the United States as credible makes it seem as if the problems that transpired during this election are negligible, when in fact many Kenyans are still wondering whether their votes were actually counted at all.

To their credit, NDI and IFES have emphasized the need to take stock of the election and focus on lessons learned. It will be interesting to see what those exercises find. In the end, though, Congress has barely heard enough to truly know if the election was in fact free, fair and credible. The 2013 election was not free and fair, and it was not truly different from the one in 2007. A look beyond this testimony is critical for them — and anyone — interested in the entire story behind the Kenyan election.

Dr. Seema Shah is a public policy researcher for the Africa Center for Open Governance in Kenya. Her focus is on elections and ethnic violence.

Some thoughts that I would add from my perspective as the former IRI country director from 2007-08:  As in the past national elections, IFES was not in a “watchdog” role at all, but rather was on the inside working directly with the IEBC as they had previously worked with the ECK in 2002 and 2007.  They did not speak out at all in 2007 about the problems so I think its fair to say that they have not seen that as within their role.  NDI was also not a watchdog as they did polling which was not released and worked internally with ELOG, intended to be a new Nairobi-based permanent African observation group. IRI did various voter education programs.  The three organizations accounted together for an “8 figure” U.S. tax dollar expenditure on their respective efforts but the actual Election Observation function was awarded by USAID to the Carter Center–which amazingly enough was not testifying at the hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Africa, Global Health and International Organizations.

Nor were there any other witnesses!

As a practical matter I think what that tells us is that the hearing was not really so much about Kenya or this particular election, but rather an opportunity to pitch a “success story” in the context of the current U.S. foreign affairs budget process.  In 2008 there were serious hearings in both the House and Senate about the Kenyan election–presumably because of the ongoing violence.  Without the violence, the Kenyan election process itself apparently did not warrant focus from Congress even though we spent so much more money this time.  Unfortunately, I do think that  part of the end result of this sort of sales pitch in Congress is collateral damage, in fact, “enabling bad behavior in Kenya.”

New material is now uploaded at AfriCOG and InformAction’s “The Peoples Court” website.

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[Updated] “The People’s Court” launch Friday morning in Nairobi

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Update: Here is the story from The Star.  And here is “The People’s Court”!

The Daily Nation coverage is here.

10:00am Friday at the Sarova Stanley in Nairobi InformAction and AfriCOG will launch a new online collaboration:

The website is a joint project between AfriCOG and InformAction and is an attempt to present in public all the evidence around the recent elections. Some of that is from the cases filed at the Supreme Court, but it will also include material and information from citizens, observers and others. Citizens will be provided a location to post /Number to send text messages in order to submit any information and evidence they gathered so that the complete truth on the recent elections can emerge.

Importantly, The People’s Court will be an accountability mechanism on the IEBC and the Supreme Court. Analysis of the Court’s decision will be posted on the website hoping to engender critical and constructive discussions on why they took the decision that they did, in the face of the evidence that will be presented.

The People’s Court gives the public unique access to all the evidence filed at the Supreme Court in the Civil Society petition challenging the election process.

By inviting citizen participation, we aim to make institutions accountable and uphold the high democratic standards of the constitution. We also hope that the website will be used as a forum for debate and opinion, celebrating freedom of expression in Kenya and our vibrant tradition of democracy activism.

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African Great Lakes Initiative releases report on observation of Kenya elections

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I have previously praised the grassroots observation approach and thoroughness of the AGLI in observing the referendum vote in 2010.

Here is their report on the March 4 general Kenya elections.  Basically they found widespread problems in the areas they observed and reported on in detail.  They did not aspire to cover the whole country and thus make no claims as to the total impact of the problems, but show clearly that there were multiple avenues and opportunities for widespread fraud.

In particular, they observed extra presidential ballots being given out by a polling clerk in one station.  The observer reported the matter and the clerk was arrested, but the polling station ended up with roughly 100 extra votes for president over the votes for the other races, and this was apparently reported on and included in the national totals.  This type of conduct would be one explanation for the huge overvote in the presidential race.  I have not seen other explanations . . .

The AGLI recommends a post election audit by the IEBC and an outside group now that the Supreme Court has ruled without delving into the details so that the process can be improved.

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Initial thoughts on Kenya’s Supreme Court ruling

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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.

[Updated Wednesday] Kenyan election: What kind of “audit” did the IEBC do without the actual voter registration lists used? Will the Supreme Court require the registers to be disclosed as sought by AfriCOG?

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Watch the hearings live: Citizen TV; or the other Kenyan networks.

At 9am tomorrow [Wednesday] in Nairobi, the Kenyan Supreme Court is scheduled to announce a key ruling. The issue is whether or not the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) will be required to produce for scrutiny the actual voter registration lists used in the voting.

[Update: On Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court denied the production request from AfriCOG as time-barred, saying it needed to have been filed with the original petition. Once again, the Court seems to be treating this as ordinary civil litigation subject to procedures but without the months or years that would ordinarily be involved in developing the facts of the case. The hearing has begun and the case will be decided without much evidence, which at some level was always inevitable given the time frame and the position of the IEBC as party litigant rather than a neutral body that would willingly cooperate with scrutiny.]

The issue is before the Court due to the vigorous opposition, played out over two days in preliminary hearings, by the IEBC and the proponents of its March 9 “final results” to a request for these public records from AfriCOG.  On Monday afternoon, the Court heard the complaints of the IEBC side that AfriCOG had not formally served copies on enough of the various lawyers for the government and the other respondents for parties who are not directly implicated in the custody of the records.  Thus, more copies served, arguments were held this morning, with decision tomorrow.

Here is CapitalFM on the procedural arguments against production: “AFRICOG plea for voter register opposed.”

AfriCOG’s vital role as Petioner 4 challenging the Kenya’s IEBC

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Like everyone else who is engaged but not able to be in the courtroom, I am watching live broadcast of the preliminary hearings in Kenya’s Supreme Court of the petitions challenging the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s March 9 announcement of “final” election results.

The live broadcast of these proceedings is an amazing development–to me of much greater significance than the presidential campaign debates.

I wanted to take just a moment to stress the role of Gladwell Otieno as petitioner as executive director of AfriCOG. The AfriCOG filing is petition no. 4–followed by CORD’s petition no. 5. Although the court has tended to give an unbalanced share of time to the array of government-paid lawyers representing the two defendants who are in lock-step, Hassan as the national returning officer in the presidential vote, and the IEBC which he chairs, AfriCOG, as an open governance organization, has taken on the challenge of defending the interests of the voters and integrity of the process itself.

This is not about Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta–this is about the Kenyan democracy.

It has been interesting to see the respondents file replies to AFriCOG’s petition trying to ignore the issues by simply referring to the “already filed” responses to the subsequent CORD petition–it is in their interest to try to frame the issue as one about a challenge by a losing candidate rather than about why the IEBC did not do its job, and meet its obligation to each citizen under the Constitution, of holding a simple, fair and transparent election.

Here is a Question and Answer release from AfriCOG on the Petition.

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Attacks on Kenyan Civil Society prefigured in Jubilee “manifesto”

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The Jubilee (UhuRuto) Coalition manifesto contains a section entitled “Good Governance” which strikingly in a country with so many governance challenges, contains only one section, on “the challenge” of “managing our relationship” with civil society:

THE CHALLENGE

The influence of Civil Society has expanded over the years to the point where the various Civil Society groups play an important role in the country’s political and economic development. In the years following the signing of the National Accord, the sector has grown in stature, influencing government decisions, political culture, and key appointments. We must identify new and innovative ways of working with the sector so that the country can fully benefit from its expertise and experience.

THE OPPORTUNITY

We believe that NGOs have a valuable role to play in monitoring government and helping to strengthen the social infrastructure in our country. We shall manage our relationship with the NGO sector in accordance with internationally recognized best practices.

SOLUTIONS

The Coalition government will:

  • Introduce a Charities Act to regulate political campaigning by NGOs, to ensure that they only campaign on issues that promote their core remit and do not engage in party politics. This will also establish full transparency in funding both for NGOs and individual projects.
  • Establish a Charities Agency to provide an annual budgetary allocation to the NGO sector.
  • Promote accountability and coordination between the NGO sector and national and county governments.
  • Develop strong partnership with the NGO sector that enhances the country’s development agenda and promotes the interests of the people of Kenya.

So what does this mean?  Clearly, what is proposed is substantial “regulation” and government involvement in the workings of civil society.  This was understood by many in civil society before the election to refer to “Ethiopian” style control–you could also look at Rwanda and Uganda for other regimes in the EAC.

Since the election, we have seen some nasty, conspiratorialist, attacks on civil society for not getting in line with the IEBC’s announced result. See “Kenyans fundamental rights under attack” from Mugambi Kiai in the Nation, responding.

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Why would we trust the Kenyan IEBC vote tally when they engaged in fraudulent procurement practices for key technology?

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It has been clear for many months that the IEBC’s procurement of BVR kits was irregular.  It is now quite clear that even after Kenyan civil society called the IEBC on the carpet on that problem, the IEBC engaged in clear misconduct in buying the “poll book” system.  When they were caught, the procurement was allowed to go through because of the limited amount of time before the election.  The “poll book” book system largely failed and on election day polling stations used a wholly manual system–a printout on paper.

See the details on the fraudulent bidding here from the today’s Standard: “Minutes reveal how IEBC bought faulty gadgets”:

A review of the tendering procedure by the public procurement regulator found out the tender to supply poll books was awarded to the South African firm, which participated in the Anglo Leasing scandal, on September 29 last year, three weeks before the technical evaluation among the shortlisted bidders.

In other words, the bidding was a sham, because the “winner”, which never could produce a working system, was selected in advance, before the evaluation of which  systems worked–and thus the working systems never had a real rather than a pretend opportunity to be selected over the non-working system.

Getting down into details, the failure of this key procurement left a situation in which much of the presumed value of the Biometric Voter Registration was lost because there was no ability to use any automated voter list at the polls.  The use of the paper print out opens a big window for fraud because one would have to obtain and verify each of the individual print outs from more than 33,000 polling stations to know whether what was used on paper matched up with the central voter registration list in Nairobi (leaving aside the fact that the IEBC never finalized and published a uniform voter registration list as required, which makes the issue doubly important).

I have no way to know whether the IEBC was simply corrupt in its procurement practices resulting unintentionally in the failure of the poll book system, or whether there was some deliberate intent within the IEBC to avoid the application of the electronic system.

Assuming for the sake of argument that no one at the IEBC deliberately wanted to undermine the intended voting systems, it remains quite clear that the IEBC engaged in conduct that clearly violated the public trust in preparing for the election.  So how can we simply trust the same body on the vote tally itself?

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Was Kenya’s “Election Observation Group” or ELOG intended to be truly independent of IEBC? Or was it to “build confidence”? [Update 3-30 Further on “Overselling” ELOG and ELOG’s use by Counsel for the Gov’t in Court]

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By appearances, ELOG certainly looks more like part of the effort to “build confidence” in the IEBC (to “promote peace”) rather than an independent watchdog.

Which would explain the problem noted in my previous post that their Parallel Vote Tabulation results by their own numbers indicate that most likely there should be a runoff between Kenyatta and Odinga but they announced that their results “confirm” the IEBC which found otherwise.  It would also explain why they have announced “conclusions” in support of the IEBC but not released their data or even their methodology.  Ironically, USAID, which supported the Parallel Vote Tabulation, also spent a lot of money over a period of years promoting greater sophistication in the Kenyan media in expecting transparency regarding polling methodology.  Today, in Kenya, the media would not ordinarily publish polling results with the lack of transparency that has accompanied ELOG’s PVT, which is based on some sort of an undisclosed “sampling” methodology akin to that used in other polling.

“Must reads” follow:

Kenya’s Election Observation Group (ELOG) announces its Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) program as monitoring tool. (Daily Nation, Feb. 18, 2013)

“This (information) will be important to help remove any uncertainties by providing validation to the results given by the IEBC,” he added. . . .

“PVT will measure the votes cast and indicate whether the data should be trusted, based on information about voting and counting of the votes,” said Elog Chairman Kennedy Masime.

“This information will be specific and can be actionable for improving the process next time” he added.

But Elog was quick to warn that it would not be announcing results, a task only IEBC is mandated to perform.

While they will be tabulating results from the polling stations, the Observers said they would be in constant consultation with the Commission before releasing their verdict.

“We foresee a situation where if the elections are well managed, then there will be no fundamental differences with IEBC. But in the event that there is, then we would consult with the Commission,” Elog said in a joint statement.

USAID/Kenya–Success Stories: “Giving Fresh Credibility to Kenya’s Electoral System” (Feb. 8, 2013)

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission registered 14.3 million voters using the biometric voter registration technology system. Biometric data captured during the registration is  is being  linked with electronic voter identifiers (electronic poll books)  while text data is being used  for real time electronic result transmission and display systems. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) invested over $ 6 million USD in the two systems, through United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). According to analyses, two of the most significant factors attributed to the failure of the 2007 election were the inability of the Electoral Commission of Kenya to compile a credible voter register, and the lack of an efficient results reporting system.

USAID has partnered with Civil Society Organizations  to ensure the effective use of the biometric voter registration technology in the upcoming 2013 presidential elections, to prevent fraud and reduce the likelihood of violence. . . .

Too bad the voter register was not finalized and published as required by law and the technology tools never fully designed and for the most part not implemented “on the ground” in the actual election.  A robust independent monitoring organization would, one would think, have more to say about that but, if these efforts were already a “success story” before the voting for bringing “fresh credibility” it becomes awkward . . .

USAID/Kenya–Success Stories: Parallel Vote Tabulation Restores Confidence in Kenyan Voters (Dec. 14, 2010):

The PVT – as acknowledged by the IIEC Chairman Ahmed Issack Hassan – was crucial in verifying the legitimacy of the referendum process as a whole and in restoring public confidence in the electoral process in Kenya.

Again, the overriding goal, achieving “success story” status, is to give the Kenyan public “confidence”.

 UPDATE:

An example of how the PVT has been oversold is a quote from the CapitalFM story covering the ELOG announcement on Saturday March 9 under the headline “Yes, Uhuru won–parallel vote tally shows”:  
 

“Thus the PVT can confidently verify that the official results for each candidate are accurate,” the group’s chairman, Kennedy Masime, said on Saturday afternoon.”

 
This is the basic point–the PVT result of 49.7 cannot “confidently verify” that Uhuru got 50%+1 at all.
 
Such statements then got translated further into statements like this from Ken Opalo in an interview in The Atlantic:

I don’t think the system meltdown affected the eventual result – a Parallel Vote Tabulation done by Elections Observation Group confirmed IEBC’s findings – but it raised concerns over IEBC’s vulnerability to manipulation. (emphasis added)

If ELOG does not wish to be a party to this, they can dial it back and have had more than two three weeks to do so; and more than two three weeks to release the details of their methodology and how it was executed as reputable polling firms are expected to do these days in Kenya.
Ultimately, ELOG’s initial statement was cited by respondents in the Supreme Court as evidence to uphold the IEBC’s decision to avoid a runoff even though ELOG had declined to be transparent and neutral by withholding its methodology and data.  Given the nature of the proceedings, there was no time in Court for either AfriCOG or CORD to probe or rebut the purported evidence from the Goverment.
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“Media Zombie” stirs as Kenyan legal process moves forward [updated]

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[Update: here is the Sunday Standard, “How Raila’s poll petition may change the whole game”]

“The many questions IEBC needs to clear with Kenyans over elections.” The Saturday Nation

The “media zombie” awakes with a recitation of damning basic questions about the systems employed by the IEBC.

AfriCOG and other Kenyan civil society groups were left as lonely voices before the election while the public relations of the IEBC and the rest of the Kenyan Government, propped up as best I can see so far by the “western donors” (with money from taxpayers like me) and the “aid industry” peddled false assurance. I will have to admit that the situation is significantly worse than I had realized.

And then beyond the systems that were not even seriously in place, we have the specifics of bogus numbers coming out with election challenge petitions by AfriCOG and by the CORD campaign filed today. So much like 2007 only worse in terms of a mass “overvote” in the presidential race.

“Halt the Party, It’s not yet Uhuru”, Wycliffe Muga in The Star.

In the New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman notes the extreme pressure on Kenya’s judges:

The case is sure to be a test of Kenya’s recently overhauled judiciary. It is now much more widely respected, but some analysts have questioned whether all six Supreme Court justices will be able to withstand the pressure of refereeing such a high stakes contest for power. Even before the election, the chief justice received death threats, and analysts have raised questions about the independence of some of the other justices.

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