A number of previous elections had led to
massive violence, with thousands dead and injured. The one
held in August was annulled due to irregularities.
The main opposition candidate, who had lost
to the incumbent, then announced he was withdrawing from the
race. A member of the electoral commission fled the country.
Finally, the do-over vote was a farce.
This is Kenya, a country riven by tribal
rivalries that come to a head at election time, largely
between President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Kikuyu tribe and Raila
Odinga’s Luo community.
Kenya has 44 official tribes and election
candidates usually form alliances with politicians from other
ethnic groups to broaden their appeal, but the Kikuyu and Luo
have been the backbone of support for the two main contenders.
Following the 2007 election, a wave of
ethnic violence lasted months, killed 1,400 people and
displaced 600,000 more.
This year’s contest, held between Kenyatta
and Odinga on Aug. 8, was also preceded by unrest for weeks
before the balloting.
In fact, in the major cities, where ethnic
rivals live in close proximity, the run-up to the voting saw
many residents head for the safety of their ancestral
homelands in rural areas.
It was won by Kenyatta, the incumbent,
running under the banner of the Jubilee Alliance, with 54 per
cent of the vote, to Odinga’s 44 per cent.
But few of Odinga’s supporters in his
National Super Alliance (NASA) accepted the result. At least
70 opposition supporters have been killed since the results
were announced August 11.
A legal challenge by Odinga, alleging
widespread fraud, prompted the Supreme Court on Sept.1 to
nullify the results.
Chief Justice David Maraga, citing
irregularities, described the results as “invalid, null and
void,” adding that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries
Commission (IEBC) failed to conduct the election “in a manner
consistent with the dictates of the Constitution.”
The IEBC had refused the court full access
to its computer system, which meant the opposition’s claims of
hacking could not be proved or disproved.
Odinga was as happy as he was surprised. He
had appealed to the court after losing the last presidential
race to Kenyatta, in 2013, as well -- and dismissed it as
inept after it ruled against him.
President Kenyatta
at first said he disagreed with the ruling but would respect
it. However, he then denounced the justices. “They
have been paid by white people and other trash,” he told
supporters.
On Oct. 10,
though, Odinga announced that he was dropping out of
the rerun of the election scheduled for Oct. 26.
He claimed that not enough has been done to
address the problems and singled out the IEBC for particular
criticism, deeming it “rotten.”
As well, Roselyn Akombe, one of seven IEBC
officials in charge of overseeing the rescheduled election,
resigned eight days later.
She left the country, arguing that without
Odinga, the election had no chance of being credible and that
it had become “increasingly difficult” for her to perform her
duties.
She pointed to the death of Chris Msando,
the electoral commission’s top digital security officer, who
was killed a week before the Aug. 8 vote; it remains unsolved.
The Supreme Court failed to hear a
last-minute case that sought to delay the repeat presidential
poll.
Odinga called for demonstrations on
election day, and clashes occurred between opposition
supporters and police, but the vote went ahead. Turnout,
predictably, was low in areas that had supported him. And of
course Kenyatta “won.”
Nic Cheeseman, a professor of African
politics at the University of Birmingham, said Kenya was
facing a “really dangerous situation” with few solutions.
When it comes to Kenya, a cynic might be
inclined to ask: if elections are the answer, what is the
question?
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