Election in Kenya Divisive, Controversial

 Henry Srebrnik, [Halifax] Chronicle Herald

In Kenya’s Aug. 9 presidential election, two high-profile candidates, Deputy President William Ruto and veteran politician Raila Odinga, were in the running to replace outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta, who has led the country since 2013. Kenyatta was not eligible to run for re-election, having served the maximum of two five-year terms.

To avoid a run-off, a presidential candidate needed more than 50 per cent of the total votes, including at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in half of Kenya’s 47 counties. Failure to meet that bar meant a runoff within 30 days.

Ruto was declared the winner by a razor-thin margin, coming in at 50.49 per cent, and making a runoff unnecessary – or so the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission announced.

But just before the declaration, four of the seven electoral commissioners told journalists they could not support the “opaque nature” of the final phase of the vote verification process.

Nine major opinion polls since May had shown Odinga in the lead.

Amid widespread voter apathy, turnout, at 65 per cent, was way down from the previous election held in 2017.

Odinga immediately rejected as “null and void” the result, adding that Kenya’s democracy faced a long legal crisis. “What we saw yesterday was a travesty and blatant disregard of the constitution,” he said the day after.

In the western city of Kisumu and Nairobi’s huge Kibera district, both strongholds of his, protesters began battling police and burning tires.

Elections to the two houses of parliament were also virtual dead heats between the two coalitions, with Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza Alliance winning 24 seats to 23 for Odinga’s Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition in the Senate (21 others are appointed), while Odinga’s group beat Ruto’s supporters 162 to 159 in the National Assembly. This clearly foreshadows trouble ahead.

Voters had expressed mounting public anger over soaring living costs, rampant unemployment, endemic corruption, runaway state debt that has soared to more than two-thirds of GDP, and a drought that’s left millions of people going hungry.

Economic inequality has reached unprecedented levels. Less than 0.1 per cent of the population (8,300 people) own more wealth than the bottom 99.9 per cent (more than 44 million people). The richest 10 per cent of people in Kenya earn on average 23 times more than the poorest 10 per cent.

Despite all these pressing issues, Kenyans usually vote along ethnic lines – often leading to major violence. Past elections gave way to periods of tense uncertainty involving accusations of vote-rigging, protracted courtroom dramas, and street violence.

In post-election fighting following the disputed 2007 contest between Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, the country’s largest ethnic group, and Odinga, a Luo, its next biggest, 1,200 people died and more than 500,000 fled their homes. In 2017, huge logistical errors led the Supreme Court to annul the result and order the presidential poll to be re-run.

Yet this time something unprecedented occurred. Kenyatta endorsed his old opponent Odinga, whom he had beaten in two previous elections. Why?

 In March, the country’s Supreme Court rejected Kenyatta’s proposal to expand the executive branch with several new posts, including prime minister. That position had been abolished in the 2010 constitution.

Its detractors, including Ruto, called the changes little more than a power grab on Kenyatta’s part. They accused him of colluding with Odinga, who would appoint him prime minister should Odinga emerge victorious in the forthcoming poll.

Ruto, a Kalenjin, had built a power base among the Kikuyu, despite not being from the community himself, and many Kikuyu thought Kenyatta had betrayed Ruto. The Luo, on the other hand, felt the time had come for their community to produce its first president.

Disinformation had begun spreading on social-media platforms by camps allied to Odinga and Ruto as the counting took place, and Kenyan media began publishing differing tallies, sparking confusion among people anxious for a result.

As a statement attributed to Joseph Stalin has it, “It’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes.”