JANUARY 2008 "Kenyan Politics I: The crisis"

… AND THE WINNER IS…

It has been a very long time since we posted anything on our blog. We realized that we can’t post anything here without first addressing the burning question that everyone will surely have and that is ‘What the heck is going on over there??!!’. It certainly has been at the forefront of all of our discussions and thoughts so we couldn’t possibly start this new year with anything other than a discussion of Kenyan politics.

Everyone in Kenya is in a deep depression. The gloom and disappointment is nearly palpable everywhere you go. The frustration with the leaders is very apparent and educated (ie, wealthy) Kenyans are even talking of giving up and taking their families elsewhere. Although resentment is simmering close to the surface, we do not see it precipitating on the coast.

Kenyan elections were held on December 27th, 2007, the 2nd true multi-party elections in the history of Kenya’s independence. We were in Kenya up until the 15th of December. It was an exciting, electric time - everyone was talking about politics, everyone had an opinion and, most importantly, everyone carried their vote with the gravity and responsibility befitting the most ideal democracy, certain that their vote might make the difference for the future of the country. Mind you, not everyone agreed, but that was part of the excitement. Voters turned out in numbers of which the US and the UK can only dream (thought to be as high as 70% of the eligible population). They lined up and waited for 8 or 10 hours to vote in some places. But time didn’t matter, because it was the most important thing they had to do. In the midst of the anticipation and excitement, there was total calm across the whole country, like people were holding their breath. People left their families’ Christmas celebrations early to return to the places where they were registered to vote. There was not a single reported instance of any kind of disturbance at the polls. When the opposition presidential candidate showed up to vote, his name was (suspiciously) absent from the voter register. But no matter, things were handled, votes were cast, and this was real democracy in action.

Vote counting began in each district, announced live on television by the head of ECK (Election Commission of Kenya) for all to see. Results for the MPs (Members of Parliament) were oddly announced first rather than the presidential results. Of the two main parties, PNU (People for National Unity) Mwai Kibaki’s incumbent party, and ODM (Orange Democratic Movement) Raila Odinga’s opposition party, ODM gained a record number of Parliamentary seats, displacing the incumbent party right and left. As presidential votes rolled in, the opposition candidate (Odinga) appeared to be in the lead by ~7%, matching exit polls. Things did not seem right, however, as the results from the home areas of the two candidates took a very long time to come in and the results counting stretched to 2 days. Eventually, there was a total blackout at the voting centers and the live TV broadcast went blank. When the coverage resumed nearly two days later, amidst rumors that the head of the ECK had lost contact with his people in charge of several voting centers, a hurried announcement came to Kenya from a flustered head of ECK that the incumbent had (miraculously) won. Kibaki’s swearing in as the new president occurred within 1 hour to make it official.


THE FIRST WAVE OF VIOLENCE
The ODM party immediately cried foul. The voting Kenyans knew that they had been cheated of an honest outcome. Even the head of the Kenyan Electoral Commission (ECK) admitted that he didn’t know who had really won! Mayhem ensued and the first waves of violence reportedly started within 15 minutes of the announcement of the election results. Their vote making a difference had meant everything and now they had nothing to show for it, nothing redeemable from the democratic process. Rioting began along with opportunistic looting and vandalism. Public demonstrations were banned by Kibaki to prevent violence, but this only added to the peoples’ injustice as they were robbed of their right to peacefully protest the outcome of the election.

Violence broke along tribal lines, Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe versus Odinga supporters’ tribes (basically all the rest, but predominantly Luo and Kalenjin) article. The violence was immediately focused in central and western Kenya, in areas where members of Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe had been given vast amounts of the most fertile land by the British when Kenya gained independence, at the expense of the Luo and Kelengin tribes who originally occupied the land, pre-colonialism. Old (and deep) wounds were reopened. The added pressure comes from the Kikuyu’s political dominance of the last 30 years, where Kenyatta and Kibaki assisted their tribesmen to rise as businessmen and political leaders throughout Kenya.

Suddenly all the businesses (mainly Kikuyu) in the western town of Kisumu were burnt down and it turned into a ghost town overnight. Even in Mombasa, where tribes are fairly mixed, anger bubbled over and flowed out and manifest as looting and vandalism. The police stood by and watched without stepping in to stop the pillaging, reportedly only stepping in to stop people from hurting each other. Why should they, they said? The theft began from the top – what did leaders expect? Patrick’s colleague’s little girl (13 yr old) was raped during the few violent days after the election. (Interestingly, when things settled down in Mombasa, many plunderers began returning the things that they stole believing that their ill-gotten gains were cursed and that bringing bad luck to their family which could only be reversed by returning the cursed items… if only the Kenyan people knew which witchdoctor to call to get the election back!).

ODM opposition leader Odinga called for mass rallies in all the major cities and even planned to stage a second inauguration. First step towards civil war – set up an alternate government. The police were given the go-ahead to use live ammunition to disperse the protestors. It was lining up to be a showdown. The formal protests were called off at the last minute, but violence continued in the slums of Nairobi and near Lake Victoria.

Travel was not secure and many of my colleagues at KEMRI had to pay for a police escort to leave their families’ homes in the west and return to Kilifi. Some were stranded for weeks. Impromptu roadblocks were set up by gangs of jobless young Kenyans to extort travelers and cause fear, closing down major arteries to the country. Fuel and food shipments were stuck in Mombasa, with the port stacking higher and higher with shipping containers, forcing neighboring Uganda and Rwanda to ration fuel. Food and fuel were scarce across Kenya and available only at massively inflated prices.

A BIT OF CALM (International mediation)
The religious leaders of Mombasa, both Christian and Muslim, met to discuss the situation. Ships were sitting in the port unable to be unloaded. They decided that they were not going to let things get out of hand. Much of the violence and vandalism was perpetrated by young, unemployed men – frustrated, without a future, and with nothing to do. Particularly in the Muslim community, the religious leaders have a lot of influence and control over the young people. The Muslim leaders forbade them from engaging in lawlessness. It stopped. The coast became an island of peace.

Several international dignitaries have come and then gone, trying to engage the Kibaki and Odinga in negotiations. The Ghanian president and president of the African Union, the Ugandan president, Desmond Tutu, along with many other prominent African figures came and went, several of them rejected by one side or the other to lead the negotiations. Kibaki insisted that this was an internal problem and could be handled without outside intervention. Finally Kofi Anan arrived and was embraced as a suitable mediator, but Odinga would only agree to come to the table if Kibaki declared that the negotiations would be binding. In retaliation, Kibaki appointed all of his most powerful cabinet ministers (all from PNU), further establishing his government and effectively thumbing his nose at any idea of power sharing.