Kalonzo-Kibaki deal and Kenya’s stolen 2007 election as explained by insider Joe Khamisi’s “Politics of Betrayal”

The Politics of Betrayal; Diary of a Kenyan Legislator by former journalist and MP Joe Khamisi was published early in 2011 and made a big stir in Nairobi with portions being serialized in The Nation.  Khamisi is definitely not your average politician in that he got a journalism degree from the University of Maryland, worked for years as a journalist, and became managing director of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation and worked in the foreign service before being elected to parliament from Bahari on the Coast in 2002.

Khamisi was part of the LDP, the Liberal Democratic Party, and in 2007 became an ODM-K insider with Kalonzo.  While there is inherent subjectivity in a political memoir from one particular actor, Khamisi’s background in journalism serves him well.  While I cannot vouch for his accounts of specific incidents that I do not have any direct knowledge of, and I do not necessarily agree with his perspective on some things and people, he seems to try to be fair and there is much that he writes that rings true to me from my own interactions and observations in the 2007 campaign.

From his chapter on “The Final Moments” of the 2007 race, at page 223:

It needs to be said at this point that Kalonzo’s appointment as Vice President was neither an afterthought by Kibaki, nor a patriotic move by Kalonzo to save the country from chaos.  It was not a miracle either.  It was a deliberate, calculated, and planned affair meant to stop the ODM from winning the presidency.  It was conceived, discussed and sealed more than two months before the elections.  It was purely a strategic political move; a sort of pre-election pact between two major political players.  It was a survival technique meant to save Kibaki and Kalonzo from possible humiliation.

In our secret discussions with Kibaki, we did not go beyond the issue of the Vice Presidency and the need for an alliance between ODM-Kenya and PNU.  We, for example, did not discuss the elections themselves; the mechanisms to be used to stop Raila; nor did we discuss whether part of that mechanism was to be the manipulation of the elections.  It appeared though that PNU insiders had a far wider plan, and the plan, whatever it was, was executed with the full connivance of the ECK .  What happened at the KICC tallying centre–even without thinking about who won or lost–lack transparency and appeared to be a serious case of collusion involving the ECK and officials at the highest levels of government.  It was not a coincidence that the lights went off at the very crucial moment when the results were about to be announced; nor was it necessary for the para-military units to intervene in what was purely an administrative matter.  The entire performance of ECK Chairman Kivuitu and some of the Commissioners was also suspect and without doubt contributed to the violence that followed.

One of Kenya’s business tycoons has recently written an autobiography in which he tells of heroically returning early from a family vacation when he hears of the outbreak of post election violence and then hosting a dinner getting Kibaki and Kalonzo together leading to Kalonzo’s appointment as Vice President along with rest of Kibaki’s unilateral cabinet appointments in early January 2008 during the early stages of the violent post-election standoff. That version of the story does not make a lot of sense to me relative to what Joe Khamisi as an insider wrote and published back in 2011, years closer to the fateful events.

As I wrote early this year:

If you have not yet read Joe Khamisi’s Kenya: Looters and Grabbers; 54 Years of Corruption and Plunder by the Elite, 1963-2017 (Jodey Pres 2018) you must. It sets the stage in the colonial era and proceeds from independence like a jackhammer through scandal, after scandal after scandal upon scandal.

Read a great review by Tom Odhiambo of the University of Nairobi in the Daily Nation here.

Both of these books, and Khamisi’s other works are available at Jodeybooks.com.

Tonight in Washington–important African Politics event

Wednesday, January 14 from 6 – 8 pm

American University
School of International Studies

Celebrating the launch of Dr. Carl LeVan’s new book, Dictators and Democracy in African Development: The Political Economy of Good Governance in Nigeria. Click here to RSVP for this social event being hosted by the Comparative and Regional Studies Program.

Special guests include: Congressman John Conyers,
and former U.S. Ambassadors to Nigeria:
Princeton Lyman
John Campbell
Robin Sanders
Howard Jeter

What are the conditions for good governance in Africa, and why do many democracies struggle with persistent poverty? Drawing on a study of Nigeria since independence, I challenge conventional explanations for government performance such as regime type and oil wealth. Using veto players theory and original data from extensive field research, I link the political structure of the policy process to divergent outcomes across two broad categories of public policy. This generates a dilemma with important implications for African countries struggling with institutional trade-offs presented by different regimes.

Carl has been a good friend to me and the blog as a teacher of African Politics and been very kind to help me learn. Anyone interested in events in Nigeria and the upcoming elections would do well to meet Carl and read his timely new book.

Check out his homepage and Development for Security blog here.

What to read if you are going to Kenya?

Kenya post-independence history is covered in two key current books for general audiences and I recommend both.

The more comprehensive is Charles Hornsby’s Kenya: A History Since Independence which I read a few months ago.  Charles brings the advantages of both scholarly training and deep personal experience including several years living in Kenya and much prior research and writing and “Kenya watching”, while at same time offers the independence that comes from earning his living separately, presently as a corporate compliance official.  Hornsby’s book is over 900 pages of deep detail including significant attention to economic policy and the business history that is so essentially a part of Kenya’s politics.   Hornsby’s work will give the basic background on the past interactions and alignments of most of Kenya’s current political figures during the Jomo Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki years.

Historian Daniel Branch’s Kenya: Between Hope and Despair is also excellent and it is the book I recommended for a quick primer for a friend who was considering a short term election-related assignment in the country in late 2012.  At just under 400 pages it is a much quicker read and will well serve the needs of the shorter term generalist for a tighter summary of the key events; along with the crucial Chapter 12 (titled “Back to the Future”) of Hornsby’s history–with the best detailed summary I’ve read of the vital 2007 campaign and election–Branch’s book will give general readers some understanding of the lay of the land in public affairs in Kenya in a few short hours.

 

Party hardly? [but buy these books . . .]

A quick plug for Sebastian Elisher’s new book Political Parties in Africa: Ethnicity and Party Formation from Cambridge University Press. The cover photo is one of my shots from Kenya’s election day in Kibera in 2007. Pre-order now for release on September 30.

Political Parties in Africa: Ethnicity and Party Formation

Likewise, the paperback is just out from one of the other Oxbridge publishers for “From Parties to Protest: Party Building and Democratization in Africa”, last year’s African Studies Association award-winner from my friend Adrienne LeBas. 

The great thing about books about Kenyan political parties:  the books and the analysis are always more substantial than the parties themselves.  I will hope to develop this theme further and discuss both books here later in the year.  In the meantime, enjoy your choice of hard or soft power publishing.

[Updated] New Book Recommendation: Monitoring Democracy

UPDATE:  See “Election Monitoring:  Power, Limits and Risks” an “Expert Markets and Democracy Brief” at the Council on Foreign Relations website, including discussion of the 1992 and 2007 IRI observations in Kenya.

Monitoring Democracy: When International Election Observation Works and Why It Often Fails, newly released this month by Dr. Judith Kelley at Duke, from Princeton University Press is a major contribution to the academic study and assessment of election observation. This isn’t East Africa specific, but with all major elections in the region now drawing a variety of international observation mission on a regular basis, it is time to apply the kind of social science analysis that is used to look at the effectiveness of other types of aid/assistance or foreign policy interventions.

I’m still reading so I’ll wait for a full review, but I can definitely encourage anyone devoting significant time and effort to elections on an international basis to add this to the core library.

And a key scholarly book to study on the 2007 Kenyan elections . . .

Karuti Kanyinga and Duncan Okello, eds. Tensions and Reversals in Democratic Transitions:  The Kenya 2007 General Elections.

Nairobi:  Society for International Development, in conjunction with the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi, 2010.  709 pp. Notes.  Paper.

Reviewed by Frank Holmquist of Hampshire College in the African Studies Review, Volume 54, No. 2:

This is a big book of more than seven hundred pages with eighteen lengthy, theoretically engaged, and well-referenced essays.  There are editorial mistakes, but they are not significant diversions.  The authors, who represent a variety of disciplines, are almost all Kenyan scholars.  The essays speak more to the nature of Kenyan politics that led up to the election with the near collapse of the state, and less to the violence itself.  As a result, they are an important contribution to understanding the election crises and its aftermath, and to the broad study of Kenyan politics and democratization.

I would also note that Holmquist identifies the piece by Karuti Kanyinga, James Long and David Ndii as “the best assessment to date” of how the voting actually went in the presidential election.

I will be at the African Studies Association annual meeting in Washington next week and didn’t want to neglect to include my friends from the academy in reminding readers of what is available now to better understand what might play out over the next year in Kenyan politics.

The book was “launched” in Nairobi just before the constitutional referendum, but the message was considered inconvenient by some of my esteemed friends in the media and it did not get as much coverage as it might have otherwise.  This is from The Standard on July 26, 2010:

Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) Chairman Isaack Hassan has assured Kenyans of a free and fair vote at the referendum.

This comes at a time when some ‘No’ leaders have accused ‘Yes’ of plotting to rig the August 4 plebiscite.

The IIEC boss said he was keen to prove to Kenyans and the world the country has moved on after the bungled 2007 General Election.

“Before the violence, Kenya was seen as a beacon of democracy in Africa. That is why we want to repair that shameful part of our history by having a clean and fair referendum,” he said.

Added Hassan: “Many of our leaders don’t seem to have learnt from the post-election violence. For them, campaigns are just a matter of hurling insults and making loose claims. This must change to save this country.

Dark chapter

He spoke during the launch of a book, Tensions and Reversals in Democratic Transitions: The Kenya 2007 General Elections at Serena Hotel, yesterday.

Swedish Ambassador to Kenya Ann Dismorr urged the IIEC to conduct an unimpeachable referendum.

University of Nairobi lecturer Karuti Kanyinga, a co-editor of the book, said election malpractices should be punishable by death since they are the main cause of election violence.

“Book Bitings”–Some Thoughts on “Fighting For Darfur; Public Action and the Stuggle to Stop Genocide” by Rebecca Hamilton

June 9 update, h/t Africa Files:  Human Rights Watch Report–“As South Split Looms, Abuses Grow in Darfur”.

I will join with many others in recommending Rebecca Hamilton’s Fighting for Darfur as well worth buying and reading for anyone interested in American policy in Africa, citizen activism in the West as a foreign policy input, genocide as a moral and political challenge and Sudan specifically.  Don’t get lost in the debate without taking time to get the book and read it–it is relatively short and quite accessible for busy non-specialists.

African Arguments features noteworthy reviews by Laura Seay of Morehouse College and Texas in Africa and Alex Thurston of Sahel Blog.

Hamilton was personally involved as a student activist and also worked for a time at the ICC after graduating from Harvard Law School before taking up this book project and journalism full-time.  Combining the roles of insider and journalist lets Hamilton provide the reader with direct access to an unusual range of the players in the activist and political community and those in the U.S. government at the time.  She also has direct experience and follow-up reporting from the camps in Darfur and Chad and sources in Darfur and access to officials in Khartoum.  She was also able to get some of the basic U.S. government documents declassified quickly enough to be used in her reporting.

Hamilton is left asking more questions than she is able to answer in the wake of the failure of the activists to deliver any clear positive change in the situation in Darfur in spite of their success in moving the domestic American political process in such a way that the United States officially engaged in a variety of diplomatic efforts.   Nonetheless, there is significant learning on offer here–and perhaps that learning can save some lives in the future.

It seems that there is some realization that the activists did not know enough about the context and specific background of the complex situation in Darfur as opposed to some other situation of mass atrocities in some other place or time.  There may be ways to address this shortfall in preparation for future conflagrations.  At the same time, I don’t think that it necessarily follows that our government would have accomplished more without the youthful energy and passion of the activists, or that things would not have gotten even worse in Darfur if the United States had not engaged to the extent that it did.

Writ large, this is a reminder that we don’t get second bites at the apple.  Darfur is not Rwanda and cannot offer redemption for our failure to act there.  Likewise, 2003 did not offer a second chance at the situation that the United States faced at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991.  In fact, invading Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam Hussein ended up hamstringing the U.S. in responding to the newer crisis in Darfur.  Nonetheless, from our failures we can learn, and Hamilton’s is a real contribution.

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On the “to read” list, here is a review from the Stanford Social Innovation Review of More Than Good Intentions:  How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty” Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel.

Tom Maliti of AP covers the chill on political books in Kenya

“Kenya bookshops refuse politically sensitive books”

This is a good piece that will help with an understanding of the actual limits on freedom of expression in Kenya as it relates to anything that might offend powerful members of the political class who use the courts and other tools to intimidate. Booksellers have titles on controversial topics–just not on key areas of Kenyan politics.

Tom covered the fall 2007 IRI Kenyan opinion poll and I got to know him then and through subsequent reporting and I was always impressed with his knowledge and professionalism.

“Book Bitings”–African book news, interviews, reviews and such

Bringing e-books to Africa

Summertime by J.M. Coetzee, reviewed at PRI’s The World

“Postcolonial Everyman”, Kaiama Glover reviews Chinua Achebe’s The Education of a British Protected Child in the New York Times.

Africa Rising–from Pambazuka

An Evening with Dambiso Moyo“–Guardian

Helene Cooper (The House on Sugar Beach) on the new Liberian surf scene.

Stray Questions for: Alexandra Fuller at Paper Cuts.