Tag Archives: Kenya 2007 election

Raila leaves the race . . .

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Raila Odinga Kenya president campaign

[Update: since I have not been actively writing here for several months, I may have been a bit hasty in offering here an assessment of Raila’s immediate legacy in current Kenyan politics upon hearing the news of his unfortunate passing from heart failure in India. Those who grew up with Raila’s role in opposing dictatorship through brutal detention and have stayed continuously emotionally engaged with Kenya over the years—especially Kenyans, who do not have the option of pulling back as I have as an American —will feel the weight of a mighty tree falling and the sudden change of light, landscape and horizon. In other words, this post may have been a bit “too soon” as well as superficial. I will endeavor to do more justice to Raila’s impact ahead after the initial memorials.]

[See also the eulogy and remembrance in The Kenya Times from former US Ambassador Michael Ranneberger who served through the 2006-07 campaign and election and PEV, the peace deal and the constitutional referendum under Government of National Unity during Kibaki’s second term. And Jeffrey Gettleman remembering Raila campaigning in 2007 to be denied by the blatant rigging.

Raila’s primary definitive legacy is Kenya’s 2010 Constitution, negotiated as a result of his 2007 campaign which I believe clearly garnered the most votes and led him to the temporary but critical post of Prime Minister for Kibaki’s second term from 2008-2013 as part of the February 28 peace deal between Raila and Kibaki.

The peace deal did not result in the fully formed power sharing contemplated but it was enough to get to a reform Constitution through the elite establishment gauntlet so long as the sole executive power of the presidency was retained (in other words, the Prime Minister position would go away). Devolution, the Supreme Court and many rights that we can hope will eventually come to fruition for Kenyans did result and have created real change.

For my explanation of Raila’s 2007 election, aside from many blog posts categorized and tagged accordingly, see my piece in The Elephant: “The Debacle of 2007: How Kenyan Politics Was Frozen and an Election Stolen With US Connivance.”

Raila’s other legacy is the enduring ODM party itself. The party unfortunately has been in jeopardy in recent years as being without a clear identity with Raila’s handshakes with first Uhuru Kenyatta, then William Ruto. Collaboration with Kenyatta had a clear rationale in achieving Kenyatta’s support for Raila and running mate Martha Karua, intending to stop a Ruto succession. The recent support for Ruto, however, heading into a 2027 re-election campaign, has been hard to square with the notions of the Orange Democratic Movement advertised over the years.

It has been awhile now since Raila was carrying the torch as a reformist leader himself and I will hope that this legacy can now come to greater fruition with younger generations, through a re-tooled ODM and new avenues to compete with ossified elite capture.

See from Africa Report, “Raila Odinga: the man who lost every election but won Kenya’s democracy.”


Condolences to the famiky and their many friends and supporters.

In light of Kenya’s latest “handshake” here are my unpublished thoughts from the last one: “Is the BBI Report more about a legacy for Raila (and Jaramogi) in the context of the Kenyattas’ domination of power?”

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[In light of the latest “Handshake” through which Kenyan President Ruto is supporting his erstwhile election rival Raila Odinga for Chairman of the African Union Commission there might be value in the historical context from this is previously unpublished post from December 2019 on the release of the Building Bridges Initiative report as an outcome of the March 2018 Uhuru-Raila “handshake”]

Old Party Office in Kibera

I have just finished finally reading Jaramogi Odinga’s Not Yet Uhuru. Months ago I had gotten started, got pulled away and came back to finish after the BBI report.

To understand how the BBI Report came to be full of small commonplace good ideas but so fundamentally “preservationist” of the basic order of things, perhaps we should see it as facing back rather than forward.

For the Kenyattas, in light of the selection of Jomo as the first leader, his success in consolidating power and gathering and brokering resources for the rest of his life, and the ultimate handoff through Moi to Uhuru following the potentially disruptive threat of the post PEV 2008 National Accord, the BBI Report offers the elevation of a retroactive “national ethos” as valedictory icing of the cake.

Three things imposed risk in the National Accord if you were the Kenyattas, in order of immediacy and gravity: 1) the risk of punishment of Uhuru under the agreement to pursue justice for conduct during the Post Election Violence, a risk shared with many others including Raila; 2) the risk of claims from prior conduct under the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission, in particular claims to disgorge assets or participate in land reform of some type; 3) the risk of dilution of power in the presidency creating general long term political risk.

The Supreme Court victory avoiding a runoff in the March 2013 election of the Uhuruto ticket terminated the first and second risks.

The third risk, unlike the first two, has involved a small measure of compromise and this is where Raila has delivered something lasting for Kenyans as a whole including those who have never voted for him.

The reform constitution of 2010 is a product of much work and struggle by many, not always in tandem, but would not exist without Raila’s role as the most popular opposition leader of the era. At the end of the day the unique form of devolution as it has come out of the 2010 constitution and its early evolution has created some real opportunity for governance separate from the power of State House.

On balance devolution provided a limited form of the majimbo that KADU sought before merging into KANU in the immediate post-independence, which KANU and Jaramogi originally saw as representing a collusive deal by some regional leaders and settlers to hold back from full liberation, but could also be seen as holding out from the national pot that was to ultimately be looted once power was consolidated by Jomo.

The office and role of Prime Minister under the National Accord in 2008-13 which gave Raila some poorly defined but not completely insubstantial power, on the other hand, “went away” behind the scenes at a Naivasha resort in 2010 as I have written about previously. It was the Prime Minister’s right of “consultation” that put previous opposition intellectual activist and leader Willy Mutunga on the bench as the first Chief Justice in return for withdrawing objection to a “usual suspect” to replace Amos Wako as Attorney General.

For Raila, his family and close supporters, with these accomplishments under their belts, the Building Bridges Initiative offers a seat in the shade under the tent while eating their slices of cake without the precariousness associated with two generations of being in opposition with no certainty of more than contingent freedom from detention, while going back in time to attend to a bit of the psychology at least of what Jaramogi was getting at in the 1950s and 60s.

Finally peace in the valley, even if the valley is quite small and the plains, hills and lakesides are full of millions of other Kenyans who were not around at the liberation. Those will have to find peace in their own way but what is new about that?

In the concluding part of his book, Jaramogi wrote, ” We are struggling to prevent Kenyans in black skins with vested interests from ruling as successors to the administrators of colonial days.” Obviously that struggle was unsuccessful.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It depends on where you sit and what your interests are. If you are one of or close to the successors of the prior administrators it is great and if you are not you may still have the satisfaction of looking around at statist Tanzania, tribal Somalia and revolutionary South Sudan and say that things could be worse. If you are in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office it is hard to argue with it on the basis of the interests you represent. If you are a diplomatic or commercial agent of the post-Tiananmen Chinese Communist Party at the very least it is the most convenient and compatible arrangement.

Regardless, it doesn’t do anyone any substantive good to simply pretend that the outcome was other than it was.

As for the younger generation and others who would wish for more and feel let down, let me reiterate that the honest recognition of where you are is not an impediment to improvement. No, the BBI Report in itself does not change much big, but why would you have ever thought it would?

The reality is that Uhuru was not going to have a level playing field for his and Ruto’s re-election in 2017 and why would he? Who was going to seriously insist and enforce the obligation to be “free and fair”. The Supreme Court had the courage to throw out the presidential vote because of the manifest misdoings in the administration of the KIEMS system, but Uhuru had no need to negotiate on the rerun and since there was never any proof brought forth by Raila that he “won” on August 8, 2017 had the tally not been maladministered he ended up being more rather than less on the defensive with the external democracies who were the only potential source of real leverage.

Raila is not a revolutionary general as opposed to a politician. He has a record as both a deal maker and a serious half-reformist. As opposed to who else in the political class? Arguably he has saved more space under the Uhuruto/Jubilee post-ICC dispensation than anyone could have expected.

If you are Kikuyu or Kalenjin especially and you wish for more change you might have voted for the opposition in 2013 instead of going with Uhuruto on tribal affinity and justifying it on the notion that things would improve because they were younger and bought a slicker more “youthful” seeming message. And since 2017 was part of the package in 2013, at the very least without a full accounting of the failed technology purchases which the Supreme Court order to be investigated but were not, the real question is what are you going to do now with time running to create the environment to have an election you can have trust in and good choices in 2022?

An Early Warning ignored: “it is possible to infer that a well-orchestrated plan was implemented to ensure a predetermined election result”

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Struck me this week that 15 (!) years had gone by since the July and August release of the International Republican Institute Kenya 2007 Election Observation Mission final report and the Exit Poll following my family’s return to the US from my time in Kenya as Chief of Party on each of those USAID programs.

A quick catch up on-line generated a critical document that I had not noted previously. It is a report prepared by IFES for Open Society East Africa for submission to IREC, popularly known as the “Kreigler Commission” which was to investigate the failed election as a result of the February 28, 2008 “Peace Deal” and subsequent processes to implement the basic terms. The Commission reported privately to President Kibaki and then released a public report (see my key document links) that elided actual investigation of the ECK’s tally of the Presidential vote as such.

Lots of worthwhile material but here is key except, in context of US policy – as I was told by a “player” well after the fact – to back the result of the ECK full stop. Aside from the issue of such a policy making the USAID-funded IRI Election Observation Mission Program and the Exit Poll beside the point at best, it clarifies why the State Department should have known better than to have such a policy—and stick with it in being alone in initially congratulating Kibaki until the violence was raging (aside from the fact that Ambassador Ranneberger himself witnessed fraud in the central ECK tally operation with EU Chief Observation Delegate Lambsdorf as I have demonstrated through obtaining his January 2, 2008 cable to Washington through FOIA).

From “The Electoral Process in Kenya: A Review of Past Experience and Recommendations for Reform” IFES Final Report August 2008:

. . . .

Kenya 2007 election Kibaki Tena Kazi iendelee re-election

Early Warning Signs in Electoral Management

With the benefit of hindsight, it is possible to infer that a well-orchestrated plan was
implemented to ensure a predetermined election result:

a. President Kibaki’s decision to abrogate the IPPG agreement of 1997 on the
formula for appointments to the Electoral Commission ensured that all of the
Commissioners were appointed by him alone. The IPPG agreement had capped
the maximum number of Commissioners to 22 and reserved 10 seats to be filled
by persons appointed by the President after recommendations by opposition
parliamentary parties.

b. The allegations of questionable procedure in the appointment of returning
officers by Commissioners.

c. An offer from the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) to install a
computer program that would have enabled election officials in the
constituencies to submit results electronically to Nairobi and then on to a giant
screen available to the public, making it virtually impossible to change results,
was rejected.

d. The use of ECK staff in the Verification and Tallying Center was abandoned in
favor of casual staff recruited directly by the Commissioners.

e. The Commission refused to ensure that election officials in areas with large
predictable majorities for any of the candidates came from different areas so as
to reduce the likelihood of ballot stuffing.

Since opinion polls from the 2007 elections consistently indicated a very tight contest, the
neutrality of the ECK was always paramount, particularly in the event of a thin margin and a
too-close-to-call election. The new appointments made by President Kibaki to the ECK early in
2007 elicited protests from the opposition that he was fortifying the ECK with his supporters
despite the need for the electoral body to be perceived as fair and independent, a perception
crucial to political stability in a region where many political systems are unstable. Several actors
appealed to President Kibaki to consult the opposition prior to making appointments to the
Electoral Commission, with no perceptible effect.

These developments exacerbated problems within the ECK. Although the ECK had improved
substantially since 2002 in its ability to manage elections, the commission still clung to many
questionable practices. For example, votes were counted at the polling station without
transportation to a central tallying center, a process prone to abuse and manipulation by the
former regime. The unilateral appointments by the President meant that the ECK was now
perceived as subject to control, direction, and manipulation by the government.

In 2007-08, I only met Moi and Ruto once each. Loose impressions:

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To me, Daniel arap Moi in person seemed more like Raila (and I am guessing Uhuru, whom I never met). A more relaxed demeanor reflecting longevity in the game presumably. At that time, in July 2007, Moi seemed to be trying to stay relevant politically. (Shortly after I met him the deal was cut whereby Moi and KANU, led nominally by Uhuru, crossed over from leading “the official opposition” to supporting Kibaki’s re-election and Moi was appointed by Kibaki as Envoy to Sudan).

Ruto was conspicuously more telegenic and articulate. Thus his natural role in squaring off against Kibaki’s Justice Minister Martha Karua at the Electoral Commission (ECK) Headquarters on television at the Kenyatta International Conference Center (KICC) during the tally in the days following December 27, 2007 election (until the Kibaki Government through Interior Minister John Michuki shut off the live broadcasting). Even though Ruto wasn’t a lawyer.

The surprising thing to me when I introduced myself briefly to Ruto was how different he came across in person than on television. A person of much more intense physical presence than a typical politician like Moi or Raila, Kalonzo, Mudavadi or others I met.

This impression lends itself to a question: is Ruto a typical Kenyan politician, or is he a telegenic but more especially dangerous person who has simply been normalized by pundits and diplomats because he acquired power by virtue of a “coalition of accused kingpins of violence” with Uhuru Kenyatta during the failed ICC prosecutions for the 2007-08 Post Election Violence (PEV)?

Or was Ruto simply normal in his relation to political violence and wrongly tagged as more responsible than other Kalenjin politicians, such that the opportunistic political gain from being indicted by the ICC is just one more common facet of democratic competition. So that in the environment of total agreed impunity of the political class for the murder and mayhem of 2007-08 Ruto has simply the normal association with violence so that his qualities of telegenic articulation can be credited positively rather than treated with suspicion?

Or is it, to the contrary, plausible to see him as something something else entirely, a fresh candidate now, breaking the mold of Kenyan politics not by virtue of having been an especially dangerous protagonist of ethnic violence, but by becoming the first real reformist to win by moving Kenya beyond ethnicity on a platform of better economic policy? Or a fresh candidate breaking breaking the mold in some other way?

Some of this depends on whether one sees continuity between the actions and history of politicians from one campaign cycle to the next, or whether it is tacitly agreed that democracy means every candidate should get a clean slate to be whatever they want to be in each particular campaign.

(Note that none of these questions are intended to comment in any detail about other comparisons between Ruto and his rivals or examine the track record of those rivals, each of whom have their own controversies even if they are easier to group together more generally.)

UhuruRuto Kenya 2013 billboard Nairobi

To be clear, State Department records show Department did flatly misrepresent the Kenya Exit Poll in 2008 to avoid pressure to release it

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From a 2017 release in response to my 2009 Freedom of Information Act request on the Exit Poll showing an Opposition win in Kenya’s 2007 Presidential election:

R 170924Z APR 07
FM AMEMBASSY NAIROBI
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 9024

FOR AF/E AND INR/AA

SUBJECT: ACHIEVING USG GOALS IN KENYA’S ELECTION

12. (U) Ongoing Assistance: USAID/Kenya has ongoing support
in the areas of electoral administration, public opinion
polling and political party strengthening. Program
activities include the following:

. . .

–– Public Opinion Polling: The International Republican
Institute began implementing a public opinion program in
2005. The program seeks to achieve two results: increasing
the availability of objective and reliable polling data; and
providing an independent source of verification of electoral
outcomes via exit polls. These results make an important
contribution to elections and political processes. First,
genuine free and fair elections require that citizens make
informed choices. The polling data adds to the objective data
available to citizens on key electoral issues. Second, the
exit polls provide an independent assessment of the accuracy
of the official electoral results, thereby supporting the
assessment of the credibility of Kenyan electoral processes.
This program also enhances democratic political parties by
enhancing the likelihood that candidates base their platforms
on the key issues and concerns of their constituents,
evidenced in the polling data, rather than the traditional
focus on ethnicity and personalized political wrangling.

Read the whole April 2007 Ranneberger cable at the State Department FOIA site.

Yet, after the election, the State Department developed “talking points to deal with press questions if they came” that told a contradictory story, that the exit poll was a “training exercise” rather than an “independent verification of outcomes” and “assessment of credibility of the Kenyan electoral process”:

IRI Exit poll Q&A

Q — Why isn’t the Embassy pressuring to release its exit poll conducted in conjunction with the December general elections?

 

A — As explained on their website, IRI did not conduct the Opinion poll themselves and have real concerns over its validity. Moreover, the poll was conducted as a capacity building or training exercise. We should not Pressure’ firms to bring a product to market that they don’t believe in, whether it is a defective automobile, or a defective opinion poll.

 

Q — Strategic Public Relations ind Research Limited (SPRR), the firm IRI contracted to Conduct the poll, stands by their results and refutes IRI’s statement.
They said they were “shocked and disappointed” at IRI’s decision. What is your reaction to that?

 

A —This is a highly technical dispute between private parties over raw data that no one
else has even seen. We understand that IRI is examining the disputed data to see if any of it is usable, which sound’s reasonable under the circumstances.

 

Q — In his recent testimony before Congress and in an editorial that he co-wrote, Maina Kiai, Chairperson of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights,
urged Congress to pressure IRI to release the exit poll. In the op-ed, he said it was important to release the exit poll because there are “Suspicions that the institute has
suppressed its results not because they were flawed but because they showed that Mr. Odinga won.” These suspicions, he said, have fueled mistrust. What is your
position?

 

A — Again, we should not pressure IRI to release information gathered in a training 
exercise, especially when they lack confidence in its validity.

Additional “AF (Africa Bureau) Press Guidance” with the same misrepresentations were issued on July 9, 2008 after the Exit Poll was finally released in Washington by the University of California, San Diego researchers and it was covered in the McClatchy newspapers.

For further discussion, see “Should there by an international Code of Conduct for Exit Polls and Parallel Vote Tabulations?“:

. . . .

The US Government ultimately had rights to our data as a matter of government contracts law and USAID had arguably and ambiguously constrained our ability to release the Exit Poll results to the public in the Amendment to the Cooperative Agreement funding the Exit Poll by providing for “consultation” with the Embassy on “diplomatic or other” considerations. The Cooperative Agreement for the Program was neither classified nor available publicly until I had it released under the Freedom of Information Act years later. The Exit Poll from the 2005 Referendum had been released.

 

Fortunately we have not seen another disaster quite like Kenya 2007-08, but the questions about transparency and release and reporting of information from election verification and anti-fraud tools are still there. For instance in the most recent elections in the DRC and Malawi, as well as the controversy in Kenya in 2013. This could be addressed by pre-established standards or codes if donors, host governments and democracy assistance organizations or implementers are willing to give up some of their case-by-case flexibility and frankly some of the power of controlling information.

 

Should there be an international Code of Conduct for Exit Polls and Parallel Vote Tabulations?

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[As the year winds down and things crank up in Kenya’s 2022 presidential campaign and BBI referendum I am going through some of my old unpublished drafts – this is an idea that could matter that the parties involved do not have an incentive to bring forward.]

To me, the answer to the headline question is clearly “yes”.

Very specifically to my experience as in Kenya in 2007 as International Republican Institute Resident East Africa Director, I was able to explain to the USAID Kenya Mission that we at IRI were bound as a party to a published International Code of Conduct in conducting an International Election Observation that required us to maintain independence from the Ambassador.

(Readers may recall that then-Ambassador Ranneberger had pushed for a USAID-funded IRI Election Observation Mission for Kenya’s 2007 election which USAID had decided not to conduct in their ordinary planning process for the election and that IRI did not seek to undertake.)

We on the IRI staff were able to push back on Ambassador Ranneberger’s desire to select Election Observation Mission delegates, although we ended up informally going along with Ranneberger’s choice of Connie Newman and Chester Crocker as lead delegates (Crocker was not available to travel on the dates required).

The rest of the delegates were our choices rather than the Ambassador’s and we resisted Ranneberger’s expressed desire to remove his predecessor Amb. Mark Bellamy from the Observation until Ranneberger “laid down a marker” as he put it.

Likewise, we invited against Ranneberger’s wishes Bellamy’s predecessor as Ambassador to Kenya, Johnnie Carson, who was then the Africa lead at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and later Assistant Secretary of State under Obama (Carson was not cleared to participate–I was privately relieved for two reasons: it got me off the hook on a potential conflict with Ranneberger and while Carson seemed like a real asset for the Observation I thought the optics of having a high ranking Executive Branch employee and particularly one directly in an Intelligence Community job would not be great from an independence standpoint. In hindsight it might have done some real good to have him there.).

Unfortunately, on the now perhaps infamous Exit Poll, I was more or less naked in dealing with USAID and the Ambassador. The polling program was under a separate Cooperative Agreement between the CEPPS (IRI, NDI and IFES) and USAID which had started with the Exit Poll for the 2005 Constitutional Referendum. (The defeat of the proposed “Wako Draft” Constitution gave rise to the Orange Democratic Party which led Kenya’s opposition in the 2007, 2013 and 2017 elections, culminating in the March 2018 “handshake” and the present “Building Bridges Initiative” referendum campaign).

The 2005-07 polling program was scheduled to end with a public opinion survey in September 2007, well ahead of the general election, the date of which was not set until weeks later. USAID amended the Agreement to add the general election Exit Poll at the end. It was only after I initially reported a few days before the election that we were going to have to cancel the Exit Poll due to the objection of Electoral Commission of Kenya Chairman Samuel Kivuitu that I was told by USAID that the Exit Poll as a higher priority for the Ambassador than the Election Observation itself. Kivuitu’s acquiescence was achieved.

On the late afternoon of Election Day as I was dragging my feet on releasing preliminary numbers before the polls closed I was told that “the whole reason” for doing the Exit Poll was for “early intelligence” for the Ambassador and USAID went to our subcontracted polling firm to get the figures. [Remember that I covered all this in complaints to the Inspectors General at USAID and State.]

IRI had no established backstop to protect itself from interference on the Exit Poll because unlike on the Election Observation Mission there was no published Code or Agreement that I could use to push back to preserve our independence.

We had agreed internally at IRI that we should not report any Exit Poll numbers externally including to USAID or the Embassy until the polls closed, and it was quite clear that we had no contractual obligation to make a report during the vote. But given that USAID was willing to go underneath us to the pollster it was out of our hands literally and there were no clear standards beyond that.

The US Government ultimately had rights to our data as a matter of government contracts law and USAID had arguably and ambiguously constrained our ability to release the Exit Poll results to the public in the Amendment to the Cooperative Agreement funding the Exit Poll by providing for “consultation” with the Embassy on “diplomatic or other” considerations. The Cooperative Agreement for the Program was neither classified nor available publicly until I had it released under the Freedom of Information Act years later. The Exit Poll from the 2005 Referendum had been released.

Fortunately we have not seen another disaster quite like Kenya 2007-08, but the questions about transparency and release and reporting of information from election verification and anti-fraud tools are still there. For instance in the most recent elections in the DRC and Malawi, as well as the controversy in Kenya in 2013. This could be addressed by pre-established standards or codes if donors, host governments and democracy assistance organizations or implementers are willing to give up some of their case-by-case flexibility and frankly some of the power of controlling information.

Kenya USAID IRI poll release press conference
Kenya USAID IRI poll release press conference

American national security officials decided the time was ripe to talk to “UK Declassified” about CIA/GSU counterterrorism operations in Kenya (updated 9-6)

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On the record Americans in Washington and a key American who is not identified by name or specific agency tell most of the story about the development of the US-Kenyan counterterrorism relationship since the 1998 embassy bombing in a two part series from “UK Declassified”.

Particular focus is on the establishment and operation by the Kenyan police paramilitary General Services Unit (GSU) of a special previously secret CIA-supported unit dedicated to capture and render, if not kill in some situations, high value terrorist targets.

This unit was set up under the Kibaki Administration in 2004 and been kept out of the open source media since.

Here is the story (Part One) published in The Daily Maverick through their partnership with “UK Declassified”. And Part Two.

I cannot imagine that the substance of the story is especially surprising to anyone. In a way it’s a story of the interlocking of two bureaucracies and the making of “alphabet soup”. Whereas most Americans paying attention from outside specific national security roles and most Kenyans would have assumed that the counterterrorism operations discussed involved the ATPU (Anti-Terrorism Police Unit) branch of the Kenya Police Service, as discussed, it turns out they involved the GSU branch. On the American side the bureaucratic distinction is that we have been using in this GSU-support role the CIA, a stand alone branch of the Intelligence Community, rather than one of the units under the military command structure.

The fact that some mistakes would be made and “collateral damage” (such as raiding the wrong house and killing the wrong person) incurred in any Kenya Police Service paramilitary operation is hardly surprising. To the contrary it would be foolish not to expect it and my guess would be that the seeming lower volume or rate of errors in these operations compared to what we see from the GSU and the Kenyan Police Service overall has something to do with the involvement of the CIA.

More generally, however, the thing that I was aware of and concerned about as a temporary duty democracy assistance American NGO worker during the 2007 Kenyan election cycle was that these type of counterterrorism tactics–regardless of the letters in the “alphabet soup” or which utensil used to eat it–caused genuine fear among Kenyan citizens and potential voters.

The highest profile use by the Kibaki Administration of the GSU during my time with the International Republican Institute was the deployment of paramilitary troops to form a perimeter sealing off Uhuru Park in Nairobi in the early weeks of 2008 to prevent protests against Kibaki’s disputed swearing in for a second term from accessing the symbolically important venue. (Contra events ten years later for Raila Odinga’s “people’s president” mock swearing in.). See “Were Americans right to be so fearful of Odinga’s ‘People’s President’ swearing in?“, January 31, 2018.

It seems conventional that you would have some general comment from former Ambassadors Bellamy and Ranneberger for the article on counterterrorism but unusual to have the amount of discussion from the CIA side. I have thoughts about why people spoke up now but they are speculative so I will keep them to myself for the time being. Regardless, it is vitally important that Americans and Kenyans learn from experience, including trial-and-error in facing the challenges of terrorism in the context of laws and policies that place hope in democracy, democratization and the rule of law. So I appreciate the move towards increasing public information both from press and those interviewed.

Conspicuously absent though is any reference to the December 2006 Ethiopian invasion of Somalia with US support to displace the Islamic Courts Union from Mogadishu and restore the Transitional Federal Government with related operations by the Kenyan military. This kicked-off the current round of the ongoing war in Somalia, gave rise to the separation of al-Shabaab as an al-Queda affiliate operating a territory-controlling jihadist insurgency in Somalia as well as operator of persistent regional terrorist attacks over the years.

See my post from June, 2018 and articles and posts discussed therein for U.S. support for the 2006 Ethiopian invasion, Kenyan engagement, and the consequences:

More context: what happened between Fall 2006 and Spring 2007 that might have changed State Department priorities on democratic reform in Kenya and Kibaki’s re-election?

Kenya USAID documents show policy shift on Kibaki from 2006 to 2007 election

Kenyans going for water in Eastern Province with jerry cans on red dirt

“Fraud”, “Rigging” and “Falsifying” are the words for Kenya’s 2007 presidential election, as opposed to “disputed“

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Kenya election vote counting Westlands Nairobi

How to describe Kenya’s 2007 presidential vote in concise language more than a dozen years later for comparative purposes?

Here, from the Executive Summary of the USAID-funded International Election Observation Mission report from the International Republican Institute, published and released in July 2008:

Following the transfer of the ballot boxes, it was reported that in some areas constituency-level officials from the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) turned off their cells phones, and many suspected these officials of manipulating the results of the presidential poll. In addition, the ECK in Nairobi refused to allow observers into tallying areas throughout the final process, and the government instituted a media blackout until the sudden announcement of President Kibaki as the winner of the poll, which furthered suspicions of malfeasance.

Although IRI’s observation mission consisted of only short-term observers who were unable to be present through all of the vote- tallying at the constituency level, IRI has reason to believe that electoral fraud took place and condemns that fraud. The rigging and falsifying of official documentation constitutes a betrayal of the majority of the Kenyan people who peacefully and patiently waited in long lines to vote on December 27.

The Institute also condemns the tragic loss of life and property that characterized the post-election period. It has been estimated that the violence claimed more than 1,500 lives, displaced close to 600,000 people and caused millions of dollars in property destruction and lost revenue and wages.1 At the time of printing this report the mediation efforts have led to a tentative power- sharing deal, but it remains to be seen if the government will in fact honor the agreement signed by President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga on February 28, 2008 (emphasis added).

See “The War for History: Was Kenya’s 2007 election stolen or only “perceived to be” stolen?”:

8. I think it is important to look at the exit poll situation in the context of IRI’s Election Observation Mission Final Report which has now been published as a printed booklet (they FedEx’d me a copy with a cover letter from Lorne in mid-July). The report, which I had the opportunity to provide input on, working with my staff in Nairobi on early drafting and through later editorial input on into April when I was doing follow-up work such as the internal exit poll memo of 4-20 that I sent you, is very explicit that IRI found that “after the polls closed and individual polling stations turned over their results to constituency-level returning centers, the electoral process ceased to be credible”. Likewise, the report states that “To date, there has been no explanation from the ECK as to exactly how or when it determined the final election totals, or how and when that determination was conveyed to President Kibaki to prepare for the inauguration.” The report also notes “. . . the obvious fraud that took place during the tallying of the presidential race . . . ” The Executive Summary states: ” . . . IRI has reason to believe that electoral fraud took place and condemns that fraud. The rigging and falsifying of official documentation constitutes a betrayal of the majority of the Kenyan people who peacefully and patiently waited in long lines to vote on December 27.”

A good summary of the ethnic character of Kenyan elections as alignments and coalitions take shape

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Susanne Mueller has a chapter in the recent Oxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics edited by Nic Cheeseman, Karuti Kanyinga, and Gabrielle Lynch on “High Stakes Ethnic Politics“.

Read it now for an accessible summary of the landscape with references for further study. From the Introduction:

This chapter examines the issue of ethnic politics: when it becomes important, why, and to what effect. The focus is on post-Independence Kenya, with reference to the colonial period and selected theoretical literature on ethnicity. I argue that ethnic politics is the by-product of historically weak institutions and political parties. When institutions are fragile and geography and ethnicity coincide, politicians generally woo their ethnic base with particularistic promises rather than policies. This is often self-reinforcing; the more winners and losers fall along ethnic lines, the greater the incentives for non-programmatic ethnic appeals. Accordingly, political trust weakens and ethnic divisions rise, sometimes inviting violence and reinforcing a vicious circle. Ethnic politics in Kenya is traceable to three critical junctures: first, to colonialism, which largely confined Africans to ethnic enclaves and prohibited national associations; second, to Independence in 1963, when the question of who gets what, when, and how became more salient as ethnically designed regions and districts battled for scarce national resources; and third to the return of multi-party politics in 1991, when politicians turned electoral contests for the executive into do-or-die events. Each of these junctures reinforced the personalization and regionalization of politics along ethnic lines. The result was non-programmatic political parties unable to make credible policy commitments to their constituents (Keefer  2008). This accompanied and promoted other important tendencies: weak institutions with only nominal checks and balances, political parties lacking policies and ideologies, and a strong centralized executive with a great deal of power to reward and sanction. Hence, ethnic groups either saw the presidency as their preserve or felt it was their turn to take power (Wrong  2009).

Independence Day, snakes and freedom

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I spent part of Independence Day during my year in Kenya at the party at the American Embassy residence. I had a nice time and appreciated the Ambassador’s courtesy in inviting me, but I was a bit surprised at the choice of featured speaker from the Kenyan government, the then-Minister of Internal Security John Michuki. Also on the dais were Vice President Moody Awori and the “Leader of the Opposition” Uhuru Kenyatta. Michuki talked about his recent “security cooperation” visit to the U.S.

Michuki struck me as a particularly ironic choice of headliner for such an event celebrating American democracy because of his notoriety in regard to a high profile and highly symbolic act reflecting a deteriorating state of respect for political freedoms in Kenya not much more than a year earlier. Here is how Canada’s diplomatic magazine Embassy described the Kenyan government’s raid on the Standard Media Group in March 2006:

The malignant designs against the media took centre-stage in Kenyan politics two weeks ago when a dozen hooded policemen raided the newsroom and printing press of Kenya’s oldest daily newspaper, The East African Standard, and its television station, Kenya Television Network (KTN). 

It was a commando-style midnight raid. Printed copies of the newspaper ready for morning dispatch were burnt and the printing press dismantled. The police squad, code named Quick Response Unit (QRU), then switched off KTN and took away computers and accessories. Upon their arrival at the media group’s premises, they ordered staff to lie down and robbed them of money and cellular phones. All those items have not been returned. 

The Kenyan Minister for Internal Security, John Michuki, justified the raid on the following day with a proverb: “When you rattle a snake, the snake will bite you.” 

Indeed “the snake” may have been rattled lately in that the raid came as Kenyan media exposed a high-level multi-million dollar scam in which senior government ministers were accused of successive embezzlements of public funds. The scam, which stunned the nation for the huge amounts looted, involved a fictitious company named as Anglo-Leasing Company that was awarded several government contracts and paid upfront. It is still a running story.

However, the exposures prompted public pressure against the government leading to the sacking of four government ministers. The heat is still on against Vice President Moody Awori to step aside for facilitation of investigations against him. 

I don’t know the real reason for the Standard raid, although I have read arguments that it was triggered by reporting regarding allegations that Kalonzo Musyoka, then a contender for the ODM presidential nomination and now the Vice President, had met secretly with President Kibaki. Regardless, the raid was vigorously condemned by the diplomatic community at that time, including by U.S. Ambassador Mark Bellamy. Just before the December election Bellamy was removed as a delegate from the IRI International Election Observation team after Ranneberger made threats that he would, inter alia, pull funding for the mission at the last minute if Bellamy was included, because he was seen by the Kenyan government as critical.

Happy 4th of July. To celebrate, do something to uphold democratic values.

[Originally published July 4, 2010]