Kenya

Ballot papers printed in Dubai are arriving at Nairobi airport and being distributed around the country, albeit with some difficulty, indicating that the elections will go ahead. The ballot includes the two leading candidates, President Uhuru Kenyatta of the Jubilee party and Raila Odinga of the National Super Alliance (NASA), and six minor candidates. The second election is being held because the Kenyan Supreme Court invalidated the original August 8 election, allegedly won by Kenyatta decisively, because of irregularities, mostly committed by the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).  Odinga and NASA insist that the IEBC facilitated the rigging of the August election in Kenyatta’s favor. He is saying that he and NASA will boycott the new election because the shortcomings of the first election have not been addressed by the IEBC. However, his name remains on the ballot, leaving open the possibility that at the last minute he will run. Uhuru Kenyatta is insisting that the elections proceed on October 26, as directed by the Supreme Court. Odinga is calling for their boycott, and is pledging demonstrations: “We will protest on Tuesday and Wednesday and on Thursday there will be no election.” Today, the day before the election, Odinga said, “we will not respect Uhuru, Ruto (the vice president), regional commissions, county commissioners and all that trash.” He went on to say that NASA is now a “resistance movement.” Nevertheless, his goal appears not to be armed resistance but rather to postpone the elections for ninety days so that they can be credible. In response, Kenyatta said, “We are warning anyone who will be tempted to block Kenyans from exercising their democratic right to vote will be dealt with according to the law.” The victorious presidential candidate must win 50 percent plus one of the vote and 25 percent of the vote in twenty-four of the country’s forty-seven counties. There are 19.6 million registered voters. As required by law, all campaigning ceased at midnight on the night of October 23, forty-eight hours before the date of the vote.  Wafula Chebukati, the chairman of the IEBC, said that his agency is “technically” ready for the polling and that the shortcomings identified by the Supreme Court have been addressed. He went on to say, however, that his fellow commissioners are following their own partisan interests, and they are “derailing him.” Another commissioner, Roselyn Akombe has also said that the IEBC as presently constituted cannot conduct credible elections. She had recently resigned and left the country. The chief operating officer of the IEBC, Ezra Chiloba, a focus of NASA ire, has gone on leave for three weeks. As for the “technical” aspects of the polling, the French digital security company with the contract for transmitting the polling results states that because of the short preparation time, it will transmit only scanned copies of the vote forms, not the actual paper. Odinga is claiming that rigging the October 26 elections has already begun. He claims that Jubilee has locally printed and distributed ballots marked in Kenyatta’s favor. Is there a way out? According to the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, Robert Godec, there is. He publicly read a statement signed by twenty Western envoys (including the European Union) calling on both “big men” to allow credible elections to take place. Ambassador Godec went on to say that if the IEBC concluded that it was not ready for October 26, it should go to the courts for a delay. “We would be fine with that,” Godec said.  Along those lines, Chebukati said today that local polling officials have the authority to postpone the balloting if there are problems with the delivery of voting materials or other practical concerns. There have already been numerous instances of physical interference and intimidation in the delivery of voting materials and other preparations for the vote. The stage would appear to be set for a major confrontation, absent a last-minute deal between Kenyatta and Odinga, the outline of which remains obscure. Already there are numerous grounds to claim that the October 26 elections are not credible, no matter what the outcome. A violent confrontation between NASA demonstrators and the Kenyatta-controlled security services is a distinct possibility. Chebukati has said, “Fellow Kenyans, excessive use of force by the police is not illusion...When the very people that we are expected to run to in times of trouble are the ones attacking us, then as a country, we are at our lowest.” Friends of Kenya are haunted by the memories of the violence that followed the 2007 elections. The elephant in the living room remains the possibility of ethnic conflict. It is noteworthy that Odinga has acknowledged this, if sideways, by telling his supporters to "not castigate your neighbor based on their ethnicity. Look on them with compassion" because they will also suffer under Jubilee's "dictatorship."

Kenya’s new elections are scheduled for October 26. If they take place, it appears increasingly likely that their results will lack credibility, and that there will be violence. The standoff between Kenya’s two 'big men' continues. President Uhuru Kenyatta insists that the elections go forward, while opposition leader Raila Odinga has adopted the position of no reforms no elections. He is promising “the mother of all protests” on October 26, which he insists are legal under Kenya’s constitution. Kenyatta, on the other hand, is saying that efforts to prevent the elections from going forward will be met with force. (Already, at least forty Kenyans have been killed in election-related incidents, mostly by the police.) According to Kenyan media, Odinga told Kenyatta that he should stop “using the inspector-general of police Joseph Boinnet to kill and maim Kenyans.” And, “Mr. Boinnet has become the butcher-man of the people of Kenya but we will not accept it.”  Meanwhile, some Kenyans are characterizing the entire political system as rotten. The chief of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Wafula Chebukati, doubts credible elections can be held because the Commission is divided and politicized by “a creepy political class.” In the same vein, he said, “political leaders who are supposed to build the nation have become the greatest threat to the peace and stability of the nation.” He also condemned the “arrogance and narcissism of our political class.” Roselyn Akombe, the IEBC commissioner in charge of election operations, has left Kenya for New York and resigned. In her resignation statement, she said that the IEBC could not provide a credible election and that “I do not want to be party to such a mockery to electoral integrity.” “Sometimes you walk away, especially when potentially lives are at stake. The Commission has become a party to the current crisis. The Commission is under siege.” She also said she had received death threats. Meanwhile, neither Kenyatta nor Odinga is responding to Chebukati’s call for them to enter into “dialogue.” Recent events, especially Chebukati’s statements and Roselyn Akombe’s resignation, indicate that the IEBC is in much worse shape than most foreign observers realized. It is hard to fault Chebukati’s conclusion, citing former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon speaking in a different context, that while Kenya technically may be ready for elections (a view strongly disputed by Oginga), credible elections rely on more than just effective ballots and voting machines: “Conducting genuine elections requires more than improving technicalities or comparing processes against international practice. Elections are fundamentally political rather than technical events and are not an end to themselves.” In a country with a history of election-related ethnic conflict, an October 26 train wreck is in the making. Should election violence morph into ethnic conflict, neither Kenyatta nor Odinga are likely to be able to control their followers. If there is mayhem of the magnitude of that post the 2007 elections, there will be calls for outside intervention. Kenya’s “big men” and the broader political class are failing their country.  

On Tuesday, the principal presidential opposition candidate, Raila Odinga of the National Super Alliance (NASA), announced that he would no longer participate in the rescheduled October 26 elections. According to him, “there is no intention from the IEBC [Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission] to make sure that the irregularities and illegalities witnessed before do not happen again.” Therefore, he contends that, “the election scheduled for 28 October will be worse than the previous one.” Among other demands, amounting to an overhaul of the election machinery, Odinga wants the IEBC chairman Ezra Chiloba and other officials to be fired, that the company that prints the ballot papers be changed, and that a new technology provider be appointed. Such changes take time and are complicated by IEBC contractual obligations to the companies involved, all of which are foreign. Odinga argues that the elections should be postponed for at least 90 days to allow these changes to be made. He is also saying that his withdrawal means that “the election scheduled for 26 October stands cancelled.” He is saying that the IEBC must begin the entire election process anew, including fresh nominations.  Uhuru Kenyatta, incumbent president and the ostensible victor of the August 8 election, is insisting that the October 26 elections go ahead. Some in Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party are saying that with Odinga’s withdrawal, Kenyatta should immediately be sworn in now that the election planned for October 26 is no longer required.  For many in Jubilee, the October 26 election should be a run-off, involving only the top two candidates from the August 8 elections, Kenyatta and Odinga. On the other hand, Odinga is insisting that, because the August 8 elections were invalidated by the Supreme Court, the next elections are altogether new, and thus open to all candidates. Today, a high court judge appeared to accept Odinga’s position, directing the electoral commission to allow all candidates to run. The judge said that the election was not a run-off of but a “fresh election.” It remains to be seen if Jubilee will or even can appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court. For now, however, the principle established is that the polling scheduled for October 26 is an altogether new election. The Supreme Court in its ruling invalidating the August 8 elections mandated new ones by November 1. Many Kenyan observers believe that to postpone elections beyond November 1, as Odinga demands, would be extra-legal and possibly unconstitutional. The stage appears to be set for confrontation in the courts and on the streets. NASA has called for daily demonstrations, the first of which occurred today. The impasse between Kenyatta and Odinga appears to be complete, with no signs of genuine negotiations between the two. Both are essentially tribal chieftains, Kenyatta of the Kikuyu, Odinga of the Luo, in a country where ethnic violence associated with elections is common. As of now, it looks likely that the October 26 elections will go ahead, and that Kenyatta will win them. Odinga and his supporters will likely declare these results illegitimate. At that point, if not before, the concern must be that the Kenyatta/Odinga political rivalry will morph into an ethnic struggle, setting back Kenya’s political and economic progress. Forestalling this dystopian outcome depends on Kenyatta and Odinga. Unfortunately, up to now, their behavior has not been encouraging, with Odinga’s “demands” and Kenyatta’s attacks on judges that he calls “thugs.”        

Voices from the Field features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is authored by Dr. Kakenya Ntaiya, founder and president, and Jolena Zabel, communications and advocacy manager, of Kakenya’s Dream. To mark International Day of the Girl Child, Ntaiya and Zabel highlight the unique challenges girls face in accessing education and share insights from one successful model in rural Kenya.

“Big men” have long been the scourge of Africa. Unfortunately for Kenya, it has not one, but two: President Uhuru Kenyatta and perennial opposition leader Raila Odinga. Both are behaving like tribal chiefs, Kenyatta of the Kikuyu, Odinga of the Luo, and both are spectacularly rich in a poor country. Neither appear to be motivated by a vision of the public good. In the aftermath of the Kenyan Supreme Court’s invalidation of the August 8 presidential elections, both appear prepared to take the country to the brink to secure personal advantage in the upcoming October 26 election (which has already been pushed back from October 17, but cannot occur after October 31, per the constitution). President Kenyatta persists in his denunciations of the Supreme Court justices as members of his Jubilee Party in the senate move to strip the Supreme Court of the power to void future elections. Such a move would undermine the independence of the judiciary and almost certainly require amending the constitution of 2010—a constitution which was designed in part to secure the judiciary’s independence following post-election violence in 2007. Meanwhile, Odinga is calling for the wholesale firing of the Independent Elections and Borders Commission (IEBC) and the selection of a different company to print the ballots, warning that he will not participate in the elections if his demands are not met. Kenyatta rejects these demands. If Odinga does not participate, he could still prevent a valid election from taking place: according to Bloomberg, the constitution requires that voting must occur in all of the country’s 290 constituencies for the election to be valid. Odinga could ensure that, in one or two constituencies that this party dominates, voting does not take place. There is no dialogue underway between Kenyatta and Odinga, nor between the former’s Jubilee Party and the latter’s National Super Alliance (NASA), according to Kenyan media. Odinga is calling for demonstrations; in Nairobi, on September 26, pro-Odinga demonstrators chanted “no reforms, no elections,” and stoned police and counter-protesters. The police responded with tear gas. Demonstrations are also taking place in other cities. However, the media reports that supermarkets are open and people are going about their business. Meanwhile, the police have removed the security detail assigned to Odinga and his running mate, Kalonzo Musyoko. Bloomberg reports that investors in Kenya are “unnerved;” yields on Eurobonds have risen by 44 basis point, but the shilling has weakened only slightly against the dollar. Investors, like everybody else, are mindful of the possibility of ethnic violence as has occurred in previous post-election periods. At present the two “big men” are at an impasse and the potential for demonstrations to turn violent is real. If the impasse continues, there is the possibility that there will be no elections on October 26, leading to a constitutional crisis. How it would be resolved is not clear.  

On Wednesday, the Kenyan Supreme court provided a detailed discussion of why it annulled the August 8 presidential elections in which incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta seemingly defeated Raila Odinga. The perennial challenger and former prime minister challenged the election results, claiming fraud and that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) computers had been hacked. The bottom line is that the Court judged that the IEBC did not transmit properly the polling results from a significant number of polling stations to consolidation centers. The judges also castigated the IEBC for not opening up its computer system to their investigation. Hence, the court could not dispose of opposition claims that the systems had been hacked. The justices exonerated Kenyatta of any wrong doing and did not find that the elections had been rigged, but were highly critical of the IEBC. The justices ordered new elections to be held by November 1. Subsequently, the IEBC announced that they would take place on October 17. However, for technical reasons—the electoral process in Kenya is tech-heavy—the date has been pushed back to October 26. On September 21, the cabinet approved $97 million to fund the new election.  Kenyatta and Odinga have accepted the Supreme Court ruling, but there are some unresolved issues that must be addressed before voting can take place. Kenyatta wants a runoff, which would be between just him and Odinga. Odinga wants a new election, which would allow other candidates to re-run. That is just one of the twenty five demands that Odinga says must be met before he will participate in a new election. Among others, the demands include the removal of senior personnel in the IEBC secretariat, a new company to print the ballots, review of the voter registry and of the  voting stations, which number over forty thousand. He is also demanding a full audit of the various technologies used. While some of his demands have been met, including postponement of the balloting from October 17 to October 26, it is hard to see how others could be before the constitutionally-mandated November 1 deadline. Hence, there is uncertainty as to whether Odinga will, at the end of the day, actually contest the elections. Thus far, there has been relatively little violence. However, supporters of Kenyatta are denouncing the Supreme Court and calling for an end to its independence established by the constitution of 2010. Justices say they are being personally threatened. President Kenyatta’s criticism of the justices is harsh: “A coup in Kenya has just been done by the four people on the Supreme Court…. The court is saying numbers don’t matter, it is processes that matter.” Whoever wins the next election, the losers are highly likely again to appeal to the Supreme Court. As the process draws out, the chances of ethnically-based violence increase.

The Kenyan Supreme Court ruled on Friday to annul the presidential elections that took place on August 8, arguing that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries commission, the agency charged with conducting the election, did not follow the requirements of the constitution. The move astonished Kenyans and most other observers. The court’s action, at least in the short term, was popular; for at least some Kenyans, the manifestation of judicial independence was more important than who was elected president. The new independence of the Supreme Court appears to be tied to Kenya’s new and progressive constitution, adopted in 2010 following deadly post-election violence in 2007. The Court’s vote to annul was four to two, with one judge absent because of illness, and three of the four who voted to annul having been called to the bench under the new constitution. Kenyan presidential election politics and elections have been deformed by ethnic appeals, and Kenyans traditionally have had a low opinion of the judiciary, which they saw as in the pocket of any incumbent president. With this decision, law, process, and an independent judiciary appears to have trumped ethnicity. Can it last? New elections are scheduled for October 17, with no new candidates permitted. That means President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga will face off again. Estimates are that on a vote per capita basis, the annulled elections were among the most expensive in the world. Certainly, the October elections will again be a fiscal drain, although there are thus far few details about how the new polling will actually unfold. There are also complaints that the new elections have increased economic uncertainty and will negatively affect the business climate. There is also the fear of resurgent ethnic conflict and violence between Kenyatta and his Kikuyu, in alliance with his deputy president William Ruto’s Kalingen, and Odinga’s Luo and their allies. The recent rhetoric of Kenyatta and Odinga has not been reassuring. Kenyatta has attacked the judges, saying (among other things) that the judges were bought off by “white people and other trash.” (There are an estimated twenty thousand white people in Kenya out of a total population of more than 48 million). Kenyatta has also, in effect, threatened the independence of the judiciary. For his part, Odinga has said that he will not participate in the October 17 elections absent certain guarantees, including the arrest of certain members of the Independent National Electoral and Boundaries Commission, whom he characterized as “hyenas.” Neither “big man” is calling unambiguously for the scrupulous observance of the rule of law, though both have accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling. It is striking that the annulled elections were generally praised by foreign election observers, but their observation was primarily of the polling itself. In Africa, now, elections are often stolen at the points where voting tallies are consolidated, rather than at the ballot box. This process is hard for foreigners to observe, and, in any case can take place some days after the polling itself. Too often, foreign observers leave as soon as the polling is over and preliminary results have been announced. It remains to be seen what the foreign observer presence will be on October 17. Certain Kenyan non-governmental organizations also endorsed the elections. The bottom line is that election observers appear to have made the wrong call about the August 8 Kenyan elections. That is bound to raise questions about the efficacy of foreign observers of future elections. Kenya is entering unchartered territory. What happens after the October 17 elections? Will the losing candidate again appeal to the Supreme Court? Or will his supporters take to the streets? Kenyatta and Odinga have a heavy responsibility for leading their followers away from violence. 

The opposition leader’s challenge to incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta’s election victory risks undermining democracy in East Africa’s economic hub.

Rachael Sullivan is a Master of Public Administration candidate at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. She is currently a Franklin Williams intern at the Council on Foreign Relations.  On August 8, 2017, Kenyan voters went to the polls to choose between leading presidential contenders, incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta and National Super Alliance (NASA) flag bearer, Raila Odinga. On August 11, the International Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) declared Uhuru Kenyatta the winner. Odinga’s allegation of election fraud has stoked local fears of a repeat of the ethnically charged political violence that took place in the aftermath of the 2007 Kenyan election.  Since this latest election, police have allegedly killed twenty-four Kenyans. Seventeen of the deaths took place in the capital, Nairobi. Police have used teargas on opposition supporters at demonstrations, prompting human rights groups, including Amnesty International, to urge professionalism and restraint by all security service members. The situation remains volatile amid protests, police violence, and unanswered calls to investigate voting fraud allegations. Continued instability and violence place Kenya’s neighbors and regional partners within the East African Community (EAC) at risk. Kenya is the de-facto leader of the regional economic bloc, which consists of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan.  If current election issues are resolved peacefully, a second-term Kenyatta administration likely means business as usual and a continuation of current Kenyan policies with the EAC region. At present, Kenya’s relations with Tanzania remain strained due to disagreements over recent trade issues. Kenyan Defense Forces will remain in Somalia fighting Al-Shabaab with AMISOM until the job is done. And plans will remain in place for the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR)—a Chinese funded infrastructure project—to connect the region, eventually extending to Uganda, South Sudan, and Ethiopia, placing Kenya at the center of activity. However, many of these policies will become vulnerable if Kenya falls into turmoil. The other EAC countries, especially Uganda and crisis stricken South Sudan, heavily rely on Kenya's Mombasa port for many important material and food imports. Tumult in Kenya could threaten their access, and therefore, economic stability. Foreign companies like IBM and Google, have already established regional offices in Kenya, a regional champion for innovation and digitalization. They will be less likely to pursue increased investment in an insecure region.  Kenyan democracy is seen as a model for the region but faces an important political test as it considers its next steps. While international observers have widely praised the voting process, the problems for Odinga begin with the vote tally. On August 16, Odinga announced his plans to take his allegations of election fraud to the courts. If his supporters choose to settle their grievances in the streets in the face of an unfavorable Supreme Court ruling, Kenyan democracy will suffer. Democracy in the EAC, like much of Africa, faces significant hurdles as political leaders fuel fears, doubt, and mistrust of democratic processes. As neighboring countries already struggle to toe the democratic line, instability after the Kenya elections could encourage a trend of de-democratization in the region. Turbulence in the region could threaten the EAC's vision of economic integration between member states. If Kenya is to serve as a democratic model for its neighbors, it must immediately investigate the opposition’s claims of electoral fraud. As other nations, including the U.S., look to work more closely with Africa, they should continue to monitor and support Kenya during this critical time for the region. 

The outcome of the Kenya elections remains disputed. The International Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) declared Uhuru Kenyatta, the incumbent president, the winner of the presidential election. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, however, refuses to accept the result. He continues to maintain that the elections were “stolen,” apparently at the ballot counting consolidation stage. He has promised to reveal his ‘evidence’ to the public. Meanwhile, pro-Odinga demonstrations have died down, and a work stoppage campaign largely failed.  Criticism of police and security service brutality is mounting. Amnesty International is calling for an investigation of reports that police have shot and killed pro-Odinga protestors. The Kenyatta government is rhetorically adopting a strong “law and order” stance, especially with respect to critical social media posts. State House spokesmen have said that the police will move against “illegal” demonstrations and will not tolerate breeches of the peace, perhaps hints of an impending crackdown. Estimates of the death toll from security service killings of Odinga supporters ranges from four to more than twenty, depending on the source. (However, to provide some perspective, last week in Nigeria, at least 134 were killed in politically related violence or ethnic conflict.) President Kenyatta is calling for election disputes to be adjudicated in the courts. Odinga’s supporters are refusing to do so, saying that the courts stole previous elections on behalf of Kenyatta. So it is unclear what will unfold next. Odinga has promised a press conference, initially scheduled for August 15 but now postponed. Meanwhile the nine international monitoring teams – including the Carter Center, the European Union (EU), the African Union (AU), and the Commonwealth – are commending the IBEC on the elections. Odinga and his supporters are expressing their disappointment in the international observers, and they are specifically critical of Thabo Mbeki (head of the AU observers) and John Kerry (head of the Carter Center team). They see Mbeki, former South Africa president, as biased toward Kenyatta because of their long professional association as chiefs of state. They are also critical of what they see as Kerry’s inattention to their claims of fraud. (Odinga had publicly welcomed Kerry’s participation in July.) Odinga supporter and current senator, James Orengo, is quoted in the media as saying “some of them just have big names but have nothing to offer on matters of observing elections.” Do Odinga’s supporters have a point? With respect to African elections, outsiders love international observers, and western governments often fund them. Observers provide an “objective” means of validating – or not – the outcome of elections. However, the role of observers is limited. They can certainly observe the polling on election day, but observing the consolidation of ballot tallies nationwide is more difficult. And it is at the consolidation stage that elections can most easily – and clandestinely – be stolen. Consolidation of ballot counts is where Odinga and his supporters are saying that Kenyatta stole the elections. Africans often question just how much foreign observers see and understand about African elections, and criticize their usual departure after election day before disputes are adjudicated. Some Africans see the real value of foreign observers as providing cover for domestic observers rather than providing an authoritative evaluation of the quality of the elections.  After all, it is harder for the police to beat-up a local election observer who knows what to look for if a foreign observer is in the next room.      

What Kenyans hoped would not happen has happened. A portion of the Kenya electorate does not accept the results as tabulated by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), which show incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta with 54.4 percent of the vote and opposition leader Raila Odinga with 44.7 percent. (While nearly all of the polling stations have reported, the IEBC has not yet issued the “official” results.) Odinga supporters have been rioting in the Nairobi slums and in predominately Luo parts of the country. (Odinga is a Luo.) Media is reporting that the security services have so far killed three, but the actual number of those killed is unclear; the Nairobi police chief is quoted as saying the police shot “looters.”  It is premature to say how long the unrest will last or what its magnitude will be. Raila Odinga has told his supporters not to accept the election results but to remain calm. He has also said that he cannot control his supporters. His vice presidential running mate, Kalonzo Musyoka, urged Raila’s supporters to go home, but said that they might be called out in the future. Kenyatta and his Jubilee party are urging Kenyans to accept the IEBC results—which make him the victor.  A very high percentage of Kenyans get their news largely from social media. The interior minister has expressed concern that social media might stoke ethnic tensions and raised the possibility that he would shut down social media websites. However, according to the Kenyan print media, officials are saying they do not intend to shut down the entire internet. What is going on here? Raila Odinga is saying that Kenyatta’s Jubilee party hacked into the IEBC’s system to manipulate the poll results. He claims they used the log-in identity of Chris Msando, the IEBC’s information communication technology (ICT) manager, who was murdered a few days before the voting by persons unknown. He is also saying that his party’s parallel tally shows that he had 8.1 million voters, while Kenyatta had 7.2 million, making him the victor. The IEBC’s responses to Odinga’s charges of hacking are similar but not the same. The IEBC CEO is quoted in the media as saying that not only was the system safe, but “there had been no attempt to hack into it.” On the other hand, IEBC Commissioner Yakub Guliye, chair of the ICEB’s ICT committee said that the system was intact, but that there had been attempts by outsiders to gain access.  A real worry is whether or not the disputed election results spirals out of control and into ethnic conflict, as it did in 2007, when a contested election led to ethnic conflict that left some 1,300 killed and 600,000 displaced. Ethnic identities in Kenya are strong, and so, too, are rivalries between them, which can erupt into violence, especially over land and water use. Kenyatta is a Kikuyu, the largest ethnic group in the country; it has dominated governance during most of the post-independence period. Odinga’s Luo are the second largest group, many of whom have a sense of grievance about their alleged marginalization. There are also many other ethnic groups, however, and alliances and coalitions among them can shift. Hence, it is not inevitable that the current election dispute will morph into widespread ethnic conflict, though there is certainly the danger that it might. Shutting down social media might help defuse ethnic conflict, but to do so would deprive the Kenyan people of an important means by which they hold their leaders accountable. Furthermore, the behavior of the security services will ultimately be crucial. Their mishandling of a demonstration could turn a protest into a bloodbath. Kenyans remember 2007, however, and none want a repeat.   

In Kenya and around the world, anxiety is mounting about the potential for violence following the August 8 national elections. Incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta is leading opposition candidate Raila Odinga by 55 percent to 45 percent, or more than one million votes. Odinga is characterizing the still-unofficial election results as a “sham, fictitious, and fake.” He claims that Kenyatta’s Jubilee party hacked the computers of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. Already, there are reports of violence and killings during post-election protests across many parts of the country. The voting itself, however, appears to have gone well, and there was little or no violence. This follows a frequent African pattern of peaceful voting. Violence tends to break out only after the results are announced or leak out. Even though the Kenyan voting went well, there were enough irregularities—late delivery of ballots, late opening of polls, and instances of failure of the biometric technology—to raise questions. At this point, however, Odinga is not questioning the voting. Rather, he is claiming that the ballot counting has been compromised by “hacking”. For his followers, the pre-election murder of the election official responsible for technology will lead credence to his accusation. Elsewhere in Africa, notably Nigeria, election rigging occurs most successfully during the ballot counting process, rather than at polling stations. The future depends on whether the general Kenyan public accepts the results of the election or if it splits largely along ethnic lines corresponding to party affiliation. Much will also depend on how Kenyatta and Odinga respond. The two leaders can inflame their followers through rhetoric, or they can urge calm and the peaceful resolution of election disputes through the courts. Kenyatta has said that he will accept the results, and has urged his supporters to return home after voting. The Odinga camp, on the other hand, has been more ambiguous; Odinga has urged his supporters in Nairobi to gather at a downtown park, while his vice presidential running mate has urged calm. The personal and political stakes are particularly high for Odinga, who, at age 73, has likely run his last presidential campaign, win or lose. During the campaign, both assured their followers of the inevitability of their victory, and did nothing to prepare them for the possibility of defeat. Indeed, pre-election polls showed the two candidates neck-in-neck, which may raise doubts about Kenyatta’s very large lead.  The behavior of the Kenyan army and police will also be crucial, neither of which Kenyans hold in high esteem. The police appear to be especially corrupt, as they demonstrated in their response to the 2013 Westgate Shopping Mall terrorist attack. Neither is known for subtlety. Some Odinga supporters saw the deployment of military units to polling stations as part of a Kenyatta effort to intimidate them.  Kenyans will pay close attention to the conclusions of international observers, such as the Carter Center delegation led by former Secretary John Kerry and the African Union observers led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki. On August 7, former president Barack Obama, in a rare public statement, inter alia, called on Kenya’s political leaders to reject violence and the security services to behave professionally. He urged election disputes to be resolved in the courts according to the rule of law. For many Kenyans, Barack Obama has a unique standing because his father was a Kenyan Luo (as is Odinga), and because of his administration’s emphasis on human rights and democratic governance.  These are dangerous times for Kenya. Too often international attention to high-profile African elections wanders as soon as the voting concludes. Observer delegations quickly draft a report and then leave. In the United States, North Korea is the current focus, not Africa. There is still no Assistant Secretary of State for Africa to sustain attention on Kenya or other African issues. Yet the stakes for the United States in the successful conclusion of the Kenyan elections are considerable. Kenya is the east African nation with which Washington has an important dialogue, especially on security and counter-terrorism, not least with respect to Somalia, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. Post-election violence in Kenya could seriously disrupt that conversation, while successful elections in Kenya would be an important, democratic example for its neighbors, notably the Great Lakes countries.  

On Tuesday, August 8, Kenyans will vote to fill about 1,880 positions. The highest profile race is for the president. The leading candidates are the Jubilee party’s Uhuru Kenyatta and the opposition National Super Alliance’s Raila Odinga. Both are scions of family and political networks that have dominated Kenyan politics since independence. Polls indicate that the race is very tight. Both presidential candidates, however, have assured their supporters that they will win; they have not prepared their followers for the possibility of defeat.  The 2007 elections in Kenya were very violent and reflected the important role of ethnic rivalries in politics, notably between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. In the aftermath, Kenya adopted a new constitution designed, in part, to mitigate the winner-take-all electoral culture that promoted violence. It also delegated significant power to forty-seven newly-created counties, each of which has its own governor, thereby reducing the role and power of the presidency. The elections of 2013 were subsequently significantly better. In 2013 Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, and William Ruto, a Kalenjin, ran on the same ticket as president and vice-president, respectively, rather than against each other as had been the case in 2007. This, combined with the new constitutional arrangements, certainly mitigated instances of violence. In 2013, Kenyatta’s chief presidential opponent was Raila Odinga, who comes from the country’s second largest ethnic group, the Luo. The election of 2017 is a rematch between the two. The continued alliance between Kenyatta and Ruto continues to reduce the likelihood of violence between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. What is less known is how the Luo will respond if Odinga is defeated. A recent study shows that violence occurs in about half of all elections in sub-Saharan Africa. Most of it is before the polling date, but when it occurs after the results are announced, it tends to be more severe. In Kenya, under the new constitution, governorships are fiercely contested. It is likely that much, perhaps most, of the violence has accordingly been de-centralized and received less international media attention than would have been the case in Nairobi. Indeed, there has already been violence in the lead-up to August 8, notably the kidnapping and murder of Chris Msando. He was in charge of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Data Centre, which is responsible for the management of computer systems for voter identification and vote counting. If there is a wave of violence after Election Day, it may well be some days before the extent of it becomes known. The IEBC is trying to implement an incredibly complex electronic voter registration and vote-counting system, for which Msando was responsible. However, according to the International Crisis Group, similar systems have failed in other African elections.  Levels of anxiety about the elections are high in Kenya and in neighboring states which are closely tied to the Kenyan economy. Credible polling results will be crucial to avoiding violence and system failure would pose a risk to that credibility. The post-election stance of Kenyatta and Odinga will also be of great importance if widespread violence is to be avoided. If the loser concedes (as incumbent Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan did to Muhammadu Buhari in 2015), the prospect of violence is much reduced. However, the contrary is true if the initial loser contests the results, especially outside the courts and in the streets.