Tag Archives: IEBC

Nigeria example shows U.S. and other donors should act now on Kenya IEBC technology procurement corruption

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For the 2013 election, I have a copy of one last minute USAID procurement through IFES for the Kenyan IEBC related to the failed electronic results transmission system; I would assume there were other USAID procurements involved for the IEBC.  Notably, the Supreme Court of Kenya found that the main cause of the failure of the electronic results transmission system and the electronic voter identification system appeared to be procurement “squabbles” among IEBC members. “It is, indeed, likely, that the acquisition process was marked by competing interests involving impropriety, or even criminality: and we recommend that this matter be entrusted to the relevant State agency, for further investigation and possible prosecution.”   “Thoughts on Kenya’s Supreme Court opinion” April 13, 2013.  See also, “Why would we trust the IEBC vote tally when they engaged on fraudulent procurement processes for key technology?”, March 24, 2013.

From “USAID Inspector General should take a hard look at Kenya’s election procurements supported by U.S. taxpayers“, February 17,2005.

Election technology can work, in Africa, just as elsewhere, when it is not sabotaged by corruption.  Nigeria, a much harder case than Kenya, proved that this weekend.

While technology is “not a panacea”, it would have mattered in Kenya in 2007 when it was purchased for Kenya’s ECK at the expense of American taxpayers as an important part of our USAID assistance program if it had not been simply “shelved” by the ECK at the last minute (in a meeting the records of which the ECK refused to turn over to the “Kreigler Commission” charged with investigating the failed election).  It was a central part of the planned assistance program for 2013 shaped on the basis of the Kreigler Commission’s recommendations for what was required based on what was done and not done in 2007.  It was also in 2013 a central and necessary part of election process under the new Kenyan law for the new IEBC, replacing the discredited and disbanded ECK.  It mattered that it did not work, and that it could not have worked because of the failure to procure what was needed when it was needed.

Aside from the basic issues regarding the technology procurements that we have all known about since the 2013 election (and before in some cases)–so thus for more than two years at a minimum–we now have in addition–the “Chickengate” matter where bribery of IEBC officials for ballot paper printing contracts by a British company and its officials, through a Kenyan agent formerly employed by the IEBC, was proven in a court of law to the standards required for criminal convictions.

Yet we see no indication of legal action by the Kenyan government to follow through even on those bribes already proven in the British Court, much less a serious fulfillment of the two-year old recommendation of the Supreme Court of Kenya for the Government to investigate and possibly prosecute the technology procurement cases.  We certainly see that corruption issues are admitted to be remain pervasive at all levels of the current Kenyan government–and perhaps there is a newfound intention to address some of them (time will tell) but apparently no new mention of the IEBC. See “Read the list of public officers implicated in corruption and what the EACC accuses them of” The Star, March 31. And “Analysis: Kenyatta’s corrupted corruption probe” by Simon Allison in The Daily Maverick, March 30.

What are we waiting for?  Shouldn’t we (the United States) have enough self respect to at least suspend our underwriting of this nonsense and to at least make it clear that we will investigate how our own dollars were spent regardless of what the Government of Kenya elects to do or not do?  Likewise other donors who may have paid for part of this?

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“The War for History” part eight: “The way not forward; lessons not learned” from Kenya’s failed 2007 election assistance

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Here is the contract language requiring a Final Report from the Cooperative Agreement for the USAID – IRI Kenya polling program starting with the 2005 Referendum Exit Poll and culminating with the 2007 General Election Exit Poll:

FinalReportI finally learned last month from my March 2013 Freedom of Information Act request to USAID that the required Final Report was never filed.   Eventually getting to the truth of this involved a significant amount of “beating around the bush” and a previous 2009 FOIA request from the University of California, San Diego that should have disclosed all of the reporting–but to which USAID replied only after two years and then by producing only a copy of this Agreement itself without any of the rest of the contractual documents.

So ultimately there is no explanation in the reporting as to how the 2007 exit poll went from successful in a January 14, 2008 quarterly report from IRI to USAID, to “invalid” in IRI’s February 7, 2008 global press release, and then back to successful months later with public release of the results contradicting the Electoral Commission of Kenya.  Nor the impact of this discrepancy on the overall effectiveness of this 2+ year $570,000 democracy assistance polling program or the overall multimillion dollar U.S. support effort for the 2007 Kenya election.

Lessons from an accurate accounting of what really happened with U.S. assistance for the disastrously failed 2007 election should have been reckoned with in preparing for 2012-13. Unfortunately, in 2013 we had initial reporting of the USAID funded parallel vote tabulation with very limited transparency and seemingly ad hoc communications, and an initial USAID funded Election Observation report offering positive assurance for the reliability of the IEBC’s announced result, only to be quietly contradicted months later by the final Carter Center report.

The biggest problem in 2013 was the catastrophic failure of the Electronic Results Transmission system–the system that was established in Kenya’s election law to provide for the conveyance of the results from the polling station–the only place where the paper ballots are actually counted–to the IEBC.  Sadly, this was directly prefigured by what happened with the similar, if less ambitious, Electronic Results Transmission system–also funded by USAID through IFES and the UNDP–in 2007.  In 2007 the Electoral Commission of Kenya simply voted in December to shelve the computers and not use them, thus creating the opportunity for the Returning Officers to turn off their phones and drop out of the way.

In 2013, we had the spectacle of highly dubious procurement practices by the IEBC with a last minute attempt–or so it was presented–to roll out the technology, even though implementation was clearly not ready.  The system was then shut down by the IEBC, except for the visual graphic steadily broadcast for days showing one candidate with an “early” lead [simply meaning some votes were included and most weren’t] and hundreds of thousands of spoiled ballots that did not turn out to exist.

A source confirmed for me what we all saw–that the IEBC did not have a meaningful backup plan to handle custody and conveyance of the paper forms for the polling stations where the votes had been counted when the transmission system was shut down.

Prior to the election in 2007, the U.S. Ambassador was reporting the electronic transmission system under IFES along with the IRI exit poll as American assistance efforts to support a fair election.  Although my FOIA requests have not been directed at that issue specifically, the results transmission system appears to have dropped off the Ambassador’s list without explanation around the time it was shelved and so far as I remember this issue did not get scrutiny in the media at the time.

The Kreigler Commission report stressed the crucial nature of results transmission and much was made of this in drafting of the new election laws and the talk of preparations and assistance for 2013, but the ECK refused to produce the minutes of its action shelving the 2007 system (or any of its other minutes) and the Commission reported on to President Kibaki and then the Kenyan public without actual answers about what happened in 2007.

See “Didn’t we learn from the disaster in 2007? Kenya does not need to be anyone’s model anything; it needs truth in its election”

Kenya: Security, Corruption, Terror and Elections (and Railroads)

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Nairobi Station - Rift Valley Railways

Nairobi Station – Rift Valley Railways

“On Security, Corruption and Terror Attacks” from the Mzalendo blog:

The link between corruption and the country’s susceptibility to is also recognised in the Parliamentary Report on the Inquiry into the Westgate and other attacks in Mandera in North Eastern and Kilifi in the Coastal Region. The report mentions systemic corruption and the link to terror attack stating:

“Corruption has greatly led to the vulnerability of the country in many cases including where immigration officials are compromised thus permitting ‘aliens’ who could be terrorists to enter the country and acquire identification. This enables terrorists ease of movement and are therefore able to plan and execute attacks without the fear of discovery. Further compromising of security officials enables ‘suspected individuals’ to fail to pursue suspected terrorists and enable them to secure early release when caught or reported in suspicious criminal activities.”

Of the link between Kenyan troops in Somalia and the increase in terror attacks in the country the report states, “It should also be interrogated why other countries such as Ethiopia and Burundi who had earlier sent troops to Somalia have not been attacked by the al-shaabab. Tanzania has also not suffered any terrorist attacks after the 1998 bombings. Is it because our security forces are weak, in-disciplined and easily corruptible?”

The report makes further note of nationwide systemic failure on the part of the Immigration Services Department, Department of Refugee Affairs; and Registration of Persons Department, also “rampant corruption by security officers and other government agents,” and  further that, “police officers are corrupt and lax too. They work in cahoots with alShabaab and are paid to pass information to the latter.”

Last week National Assembly rejected the Joint Committees report and the recommendations made therein. However questions and issues in the report raised with regards to the link between corruption and terrorism still remain.

AfriCOG report: Election Day 2013 and its Aftermath:

In commemoration of this historic election, the Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) presents its own findings related to election day and its aftermath in this report. In line with its commitment to promote permanent vigilance by citizens over public life and public institutions, AfriCOG provides an account of voters’experiences at the polling station. In addition, the report details the counting, tallying and results transmission procedures, noting the varied problems associated with these procedures. Overall, in contrast to many observer reports, AfriCOG finds that the failure of electoral technology made it impossible to verify the manual counts of election results. This was compounded by a wide array of problems at the polling station, ranging from names missing from the voters’ register to voter bribery.

To conclude, AfriCOG recommends a series of reforms to ensure that future elections live up to constitutional standards for transparency and verifiability.

And “TransCentury sells Rift Valley Railways stake to Citadel”.  The RVR saga continues, alongside the SGR saga.

2013 Kenya Exit Poll — academic study published (updated)

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Professors Clark Gibson, James Long and Karen Ferree have now published an article from their 2013 Kenyan election exit poll in The Journal of East African Studies.

The Star has an analysis in Wednesday’s edition. This is the front page, but the story is not yet up online. (Update: Here is The Star story, “Uhuru didn’t get 50% in 2013–U.S. academics“.)

See my May post with the video from an original presentation at Johns Hopkins SAIS here.

A Guest Post on the State of Kenya@50: “Where Did The Time Go and What Do We Have to Show For It?”

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Following is a “guest post” from Andrew J. Franklin, an American now leaving Kenya after more than thirty years of Kenya’s fifty year independent history. This was originally written back in May, after the election failures but months before the Westgate fiasco, about which we learned more damning information with the report this week from the review by the NYPD:
Kenya Map at Nairobi School

“It’s mid-May, do you know where your election results are?”

Good question! As Kenya prepares to celebrate 50 years of Independence – and, remarkably for Africa, largely free of tribal massacres, wars, natural and/or manmade disasters, successive failed or successful military coups d’etat, vicious secret police operations or state sponsored “disappearances – this steadily failing state is increasingly unable to conduct normal run of the mill governmental functions.

The GOK was able to carry out a national census until the late 1990s, deliver mail and inland cables, find the owners of automobiles allegedly involved in traffic offenses, pay pensions, etc. The more international assistance and support for the GOK and its myriad associated agencies, parastatals, universities and authorities the faster state operations have deteriorated.

The incredible investment in “IT” prior to the 2013 General Elections was not only supposed to prevent or mitigate electoral fraud but was also a belated recognition of just how bad government administration had become.

The IEBC was unable to organize or conduct “voter education” prior to the March 4th polls and is probably unable to find all 120,000 (?) temporary workers hired for these elections; media reports indicate that election- related pay owed to the police, NYS recruits and prison warders has still not been paid.

In essence it is an amazingly foolish leap of faith to expect the IEBC to release any election results for President, Governors and members of the National Assembly and Senate. The longer these results are kept from the public the greater will be arguments that these elections were stolen; 50% of the country is already on a slow boil and the new administration is clearly not able to handle long simmering insecurity in Mandera, Garissa and Wajir Counties or in Western Kenya where criminal gangs are terrorizing the populace.

Reports of a resurgence of Mungiki in and around Nairobi as well as continuing MRC related activity in the “Coast Province” counties – including Lamu – show that the state of national insecurity is more serious than anyone will publicly admit. The heavy handed response on Tuesday, 14/05/2013, by some 400 “security personnel” drawn from the disparate forces within the “National” Police Service to only 250 noisy demonstrators – and 15 or so pigs and piglets – outside Parliament showed an usual lack of any police command and control.

Meanwhile the Obama Administration seems blissfully unaware or unconcerned of the situation in Kenya; our bureaucrats just seem to be hunkering down and covering their asses.

Reports that the police fired live ammunition to “break up the crowd of peaceful demonstrators” after tear gas and water cannon proved “ineffective” indicates a lack of discipline or concern for innocent bystanders or onlookers in offices, shops or even the carparks in the vicinity of Parliament right smack in the CBD!

The use of live ammunition to quell demonstrations in Kisumu in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision on March 30th elicited little comment in the domestic media and certainly no public protests from the US Embassy. Apparently the rubber bullets procured by the NPS prior to the elections are still in their original packing?

The bottom line is that “Something’s happening here. What it is, is very clear…” To Some!

Andrew J. Franklin, J.D.
Former U.S. Marine, resident of Nairobi since March, 1981

“After the Dust Has Settled” shiny new Kenyan institutions left dingy

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Dr. Stephanie Burchard has a piece in the current issue of the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Africa Watch entitled “After The Dust Has Settled: Kenya’s 2013 Elections”, noting the unexplained failure of the IEBC to release election results that were required in mid-March until mid-July.  The key takeaway:

Unfortunately, after all that has happened since, it is unclear how much respect or trust Kenyans continue to have in their political institutions.  Politicians seem wary of Kenya’s political institutions.  Raila Odinga promised that he and CORD would boycott future elections until changes within the IEBC take place.  Even more troubling, public trust in Kenya’s new institutions appears to be eroding.  In early July a national survey conducted by Ipsos Synovate revealed that confidence in Kenya’s new political institutions, including the Supreme Court and the electoral commission, had fallen precipitously over the course of the past few months.  In particular, confidence in the IEBC had fallen by 30 percentage points–from a high of 62 percent in February to 32 percent less than five months later.

 

Bonus reading on the American foreign assistance political and policy process: from the Lugar Center, “Lessons for the Next QDDR” by Diana Ohlbaum and Connie Veillette.

 

134 days after election, Kenya’s IEBC fails to produce election results in Parliament

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Daily Nation, July 16, “IEBC fails to submit final poll tally” :

The electoral commission failed to furnish Parliament with the final results of the March 4 General Election Tuesday amid claims that some commissioners refused to sign the report.

 

The commission was expected to submit the final tally to the Justice and Legal Affairs committee at a meeting scheduled with the team at Parliament Buildings Tuesday. The committee was to relay the report to Parliament.

 

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairman Issack Hassan and chief executive James Oswago appeared before the committee but were turned away after the chairman indicated that the tally was not ready for submission as per the request from Parliament. . . .

Here is the Standard story.

 

“The long, long vote count” –new reporting from Kenya in Africa Confidential

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Election Observers

The new “free article” from this month’s Africa Confidential says better what I have been getting at about the extraordinary delay in releasing the results from the Kenyan election, along with new independent reporting on the facts:

. . . In the longer term, such doubts could prompt a re-evaluation of foreign election monitoring missions in Africa. Some on the European Union mission, for example, had serious doubts about the integrity of the process, but it quickly endorsed Kenyatta’s election. By that stage, the EU had contributed more than 50 million euros (US$66 mn.) to the cost of the elections, reckoned to total over $400 mn. One diplomat in Nairobi joked that it was a case of ‘responsibility without power’, meaning that the EU would be blamed for a messy result due to its financial involvement but had no power to change anything.

The IEBC found that a million more votes were cast in the presidential election than in any other, Africa Confidential has learned, although all were held on the same day. Opposition and civil society activists have raised questions about such discrepancies for several months.

An unnamed electoral commissioner quoted in the Nairobi daily The Star appears to confirm their suspicions: ‘We are having sleepless nights reconciling the presidential results and those of the other positions. Over a million votes must be reconciled with the others and if the requirement is not changed, then it will cast the IEBC in a negative light.’

Kenyatta’s supporters reject the concerns, arguing that it is natural that voters were more worried about selecting the national president than candidates for other positions. Few neutrals see this as credible. In the past, dramatically higher turnouts in presidential elections than in others on the same day have been taken as a sign of ballot-box stuffing.

It seems far-fetched that over a million Kenyans would queue for several hours to vote and then ignore all of the ballots apart from the presidential one, especially since there was great excitement about the contests for new, powerful positions such as senator and governor. None of the many election observers we asked said they had seen significant numbers of voters putting a ballot paper in the presidential box but not the others.

. . . .

Please read the whole piece; this is important for the future of Kenya and for future elections everywhere.

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It’s mid-June: another month goes by without Kenya’s election results while Hassan goes to Washington [revised]

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Form 34 Posted

Form 34 Posted

IFES, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, hosted the latest round of its “IEBC goes to Washington” events with Chairman Hassan on June 12–this one purporting to discuss “lessons learned” from the March 4 election (link to webcast). A key lesson for the Kenyan government so far appears to be that if you sit on the election results long enough you can outlast the observers and the donors will pat themselves on the back anyway.

I didn’t make the trip to Washington for this event, in part because I don’t think the event should have taken place until after, at a minimum, the election results were released, if not other basic information we have all been waiting for. I did watch on-line. Here is my take:

My impression was that the objective of this event was indicated by the introduction and the conclusion. These were extravagant conclusory statements from IFES CEO Bill Sweeney about what a great success the Kenyan election was and what a great job the IEBC and its chairman did (and by implication of course IFES). Otherwise, there was just nothing new here. IFES’s Country Director Michael Yard gave a sober reminder of all the many things associated with basic electoral reform, like campaign finance laws, gender balance,etc. that remain undone–as he cautioned back in April 2012 with Hassan in Washington about the challenges of trying to do too much in too little time in introducing technology. The Washington triumphalism is “tone from the top” stuff that I haven’t heard from Yard or anyone else at IFES and I don’t doubt that everyone involved in actually working on the programs in Kenya did their best to avoid the kind of mess that actually came to pass.

From Sweeney’s argument, the reason this was all a great success–end of story–without even having results released three months later, is that “Kenya didn’t burn.” If I were a Kenyan I would be a bit offended by that. First of all “Kenya” didn’t “burn” last time–there was major violence in some places, including arson by militias, major sponsors of which, based on the confirmed ICC charges, got together this time. Kenyans of all tribes and persuasions were chastened by the post-election violence last time. Because of the experience, religious and community groups, civil society and the international community invested heavily in peacebuilding and conflict warning and resolution approaches. Threat of further ICC prosecutions hung over the key political actors that used violence last time. Thanks to a ruling by Speaker Kenneth Marende in Parliament and the High Court at the time, after passage of the new constitution in 2010, a new Chief Justice was appointed who was acceptable to the opposition as well as to the President, giving the opposition some hope in going to court after the IEBC ruling that the Uhuruto ticket had reached 50.07%. The Government of Kenya heavily deployed military, paramilitary and police force, especially in areas most supportive of the opposition, and the new Inspector General (chief) of police announced a ban of political assembly and peaceful protest, irrespective of the constitution–while gangs patrolled many of the slum areas. The biggest number of people killed last time were shot by the police, as reported by the Waki Commission. Last time the shoot to kill policy was unexpected; this time it was understood in advance. People stayed home after voting for many reasons that do not constitute an endorsement of the work and conduct of the IEBC.

Saying that the IEBC did a “great job” because “Kenya didn’t burn” is part of what I mean about having lower standards for elections in Africa–sorry if it’s impolite to notice.

The obvious question, of course, is that if Kenya not “burning” warrants so much public chest beating this time, should we include public discussion of “lessons learned” or any accounting or apologies for last time when so many people were killed and maimed?

Meanwhile back in Nairobi, the election results are being missed.

The Star: “Raila wants IEBC results released”:

“If indeed the IEBC conducted a free and fair poll, why is it delaying the computation of the election results three months later? They should announce so that we know what TNA, ODM, Wiper among other parties got,” Raila told the crowd at the Kabiro Primary School.

The Supreme Court on April 9 upheld the IEBC declaration of Uhuru as the winner after Raila’s Cord challenged the outcome of the presidential election.

The court ruled that the process was within the law and that Uhuru had been validly elected as the president.

Raila’s sentiments come against the backdrop of divisions within the IEBC over the computation of the results. An IEBC commissioner, who did not want his identity revealed, told the Star that the final figure was to be released before the end of last week but the disagreement among them had caused the delay.

The figures, according to the commissioner, were to be finalised before presentation of budget estimates to the parliamentary committee.

Whereas some commissioners want the the process finalised, others want the section of the Political Parties’ Act providing for the computation of results amended to give the commission more time. Those pushing for the amendment want the parties to share the monies on the basis of their representation in the Parliament and the county assemblies.

According to the commissioner, the variation of the results between the presidential and other positions was “irreconcilable”.

“The IEBC was to release the results before the end of the week but the huge variation between the presidential results announced on the 9th of March this year and the other positions combined is the source of the headache,” the source said.

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[Updated June 3] “Kenya’s Elections: Observing the observers”

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The new June issue of Africa in Fact published by Good Governance Africa based in South Africa has an article, “Kenya’s Elections: Observing the observers” by Mienke Mari Steytler.  I hope you will take time to read it.

The article included some observations on the work of the Election Observation Missions from interviews in Nairobi with yours truly as an independent consultant and responses and comments from others.  Here is one example:

The EU and the Commonwealth missions are also known for their independence and diplomacy, but others—particularly groups representing intergovernmental bodies—are less critical and independent, according to Mr Flottman. The AU mission had 69 observers and visited 400 polling stations throughout the country. The IGAD/ EAC/COMESA coalition deployed 55 observers to this year’s election.

Kenya is a member of the AU, IGAD, the EAC and COMESA, and they share geopolitical interests. Mr Flottman emphasised that observer missions representing the regional groupings are unlikely “to challenge any position of government”. For instance, the IGAD coalition mission declared the party nominations stage a success, Mr Flottman said. “They said the primaries were good. This is a nonsense statement. No one said that, come on.”

“Observer missions from the AU, SADC [Southern African Development Community], EAC, ECOWAS [Economic Community Of West African States]…because they are intergovernmental bodies, there is the ‘you rub my back, I’ll rub yours’ approach to certifying elections,” EISA’s Mr Owuor said, supporting Mr Flottman’s view. “In other words they were not very critical in an effort not to offend the current government.”

 

Update: on the issue of the use of the term “free and fair”, see The Star, “March 4 polls free, fair – EU”:

EUROPEAN Union election observers have said that the March 4 general elections in Kenya were “overally successful, free and fair” despite reported flaws.

They have however said the processing of the final results by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission “lacked the necessary transparency as party agents and election observers were not given adequate access to the tallying centres”.

Speaking yesterday in Nairobi while releasing the final report, EU elections observation mission chief observer Alojz Peterle said there are several lessons from the difficulties that arose during the process.

 

Here is the link to the entire issue for pdf download:  Africa in Fact:  June 2013–Elections: Make Them Count.

So who is “Good Governance Africa”?  Here is an interview by Africa in Fact editor Constanza Montana of John Endres, CEO of this “new kid on the block” of organizations working to improve governance in Africa.

Update:  See also this recent piece from Think Africa Press by Dr. Judith Kelley at Duke: “Watching the Watchmen: The Role of Election Observers in Africa”:

. . . There are certainly sometimes questions about the conduct of outside observers.

Elections in Kenya unfortunately often provide a case in point and the latest is no exception. The EU monitors have been dragging their feet, with their final report now overdue. EU observer mission spokesman, Peter Visnovitz, reportedly promised the report would be made public by 4 May, but we are still waiting. Furthermore, in its initial press release (before the counting was complete), the EU was positive despite noting that the biometric voting process disenfranchised more than 3 million voters.

Why is the EU taking so long for its final assessment? The Kenyan Star claims that an internal report revealed strong reservations about the processing of the results. Meanwhile, the International Crisis Group (ICG) noted numerous problems and criticised the swiftness with which international observer groups pronounced all well in Kenya’s vote.

Earlier commotion around international observers in Kenya includes their muted response to the problems in the 1992 election; the mission was eager to send positive signals to calm fears of upheavals and resume aid. Their conduct in Kenya’s 2007 election also drew criticism from the UN Independent Review Commission; the body reported that monitors had at times based their claims on misunderstandings.

Time for an African solution?

International observers are clearly not perfect. But the final part of Obasanjo’s argument – that cure for the problem is for African monitoring groups to take over from international missions – rests on equally shaky grounds.

It is true that African groups have become more active. The AU, SADC, ECOWAS, and the electoral Institute of South Africa (EISA), among others, all now feature election observer missions. The AU started as far back as 1989, and the other groups have joined in the last 10 years or so.

That, however, is where the argument stalls. By and large, these groups are not ready to take over as the sole option for election observation on the continent. They have limited resources and experience, their sponsors or member-states are often not particularly democratic themselves, and most importantly, because these organisations are even more embroiled in politics on the continent, they are often more biased than non-African observers.

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