The Situation in Kenya

Many people are aware of all the problems going on in Kenya at this time. It is a complex issue and one that is difficult for Americans to understand. The report that follows is from Shawn Tyler, a form coworker in Kenya and a good friend. Shawn is a missionary in Uganda and I thought his analysis was quite good. I hope you find it enlightening.


A Comprehensive Report on Kenya

Letter 357 from Uganda – 10 January 2008

The following pieces of information have been pulled together from Internet News Sources and mixed with a little personal insight.

One news agency reports that the decision to return Kenya's 76-year-old incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, to office was not made by the Kenyan people but by a small group of hard line leaders from Mr. Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe even before the result was announced, perhaps even before the opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, had opened up a lead in early returns from the December 27th election. The news agency called it “a civil coup”.
The planning was meticulous. All that was needed were the extra votes to squeak past Mr. Odinga in what had been among the most closely contested elections Africa had ever seen. That was why returns from Central Province, Mr. Kibaki's fiercely loyal Kikuyu heartland, were inexplicably held back. It was why, in some constituencies, a large number of voters seemed mysteriously to vote only in the presidential race and ignore the parliamentary ballot—despite waiting hours in the blazing sun. But the real damage was done in Nairobi, by simply crossing out the number of votes as announced in the constituency and scribbling in a higher number. Election monitors were turned away while the tallying went on. Monitors from the European Union saw tens of thousands of votes created in this way.
Mr. Odinga's supporters were not innocent either. There were irregularities in his home province of Nyanza. Still, it was the meddling in Central Province that was decisive. Officially, Mr. Kibaki won 4.58 million votes to Mr. Odinga's 4.35 million. A third candidate, Kalonzo Musyoka, won 880,000 votes. Unofficially, Mr. Odinga may have won, albeit by a similarly narrow margin.
The tragedy for Kenya, and what threatens to rip the nation apart, is that no one will know for sure. The EU's preliminary report on the election was scathing. Although the parliamentary election had gone off well, the European observers said the presidential one had fallen short of “international standards”.
The role of the electoral commission was particularly dodgy. On the afternoon of December 30th its head, Samuel Kivuitu, was announcing the results of several constituencies, when he was interrupted by representatives from the Molo area. They argued that his numbers were not correct claiming more than 30,000 votes had been added for Mr. Kibaki than the official report gave. They produced the official report along with the chairman overseeing the tallying. Mr. Kivuitu became so angry that he left the room without commenting on the accusations. Less than a half later, he declared Mr. Kibaki president. The news went out only on KBC, the state broadcaster. Other camera crews were led out of the building. The security forces sealed off the city center against the angry poor, most of whom had voted for Mr. Odinga. A few minutes later, in the twilight, Mr. Kibaki was sworn in as president at the State House. In contrast to Mr. Kibaki's first term, when the inauguration took place in a stadium heaving with jubilant supporters, there were no dignitaries or diplomats, just a few dozen loyalists and civil servants. Some questioned whether in fact the whole event had been staged earlier and pre-recorded.
The reaction to Mr. Kibaki’s swearing-in was immediate. Nairobi's slums exploded in rage. The poor killed each other. Across the country came a swelling up of tribal violence, sometimes Kikuyu against Mr. Odinga's Luo tribe, more often Luo and Kalenjin tribes against Kikuyu. The official figure given is that more than 700 have been killed so far in clashes through out the country and 500,000 have been displaced. Unofficial estimates place the number killed as much higher. Gang rapes and mutilations have been reported in numerous places. Police had orders to shoot to kill. There has been looting in Kisumu, riots in Mombasa and pitched battles in Eldoret. Kikuyu hiding in a church near Eldoret were burned alive by a mob.
Taken together, this amounts to a pulling apart of Kenya's rich national fabric. Some 97% of Kikuyu voted for Mr. Kibaki. Everywhere else he was soundly defeated. Muslims, for instance, voted against Mr. Kibaki by 70% or more. The Kikuyu highlands encircling the glaciers of Mount Kenya increasingly feel like a state within a state. The division is even more troubling when the parliamentary vote is taken into account. Mr. Kibaki lost half his cabinet, including his vice-president Mr. Moody Awouri, as well as a large number of seemingly unassailable members of parliament including Nicholas Biwott, Moi’s three sons, the finance minister, foreign affairs minister, agricultural minister, etc. This government may find it impossible to pass a budget. In fact there is the possibility that the first act of the opposition in Parliament is to seek a vote of no confidence in the President. Since the opposition party holds 101 of the 210 total parliamentary seats but way more than Mr. Kibaki’s party which holds only 35, Mr. Kibaki will have a hard time fighting it off.
The hardliners' instincts will be to use the security services to reverse the freedoms of Mr. Kibaki's first term—anything to avoid power slipping into Mr. Odinga's hands. One example of this has been the government’s takeover of the radio and television stations. Heavy censorship, no criticism of the government and no live broadcasts of demonstrations were allowed. Kenyans may not stand for this. The government pressured the country's mobile-phone operators to suspend text messages for “security reasons”, without success. The army's strong apolitical tradition, with staff officers drawn from several tribes, looks to be holding though some claim plain clothes military men used machine guns in the streets of Eldoret to repel street gangs.
Mr. Odinga has demanded Mr. Kibaki's resignation ever since he was secretly sworn in as president. Mr. Odinga is calling for a campaign of civil action, peaceable, but determined. On January 3rd, thousands of opposition supporters tried to converge on the center of Nairobi for a protest rally but were dispersed by the police. Attorney General Amos Wako called for an independent probe into the election. Later the same day Mr. Kibaki said, for the first time, that he was willing to talk to the opposition “once the nation is calm”.
The EU had at first been reluctant to send observers, arguing that resources for Africa were slim and Kenya was “too stable”. During the orderly voting, the mission did indeed look like an extravagance. A week later the country was teetering on the brink of civil war. A chastened Mr. Kivuitu now says he is not sure Mr. Kibaki won the election. The Americans and the British have been twisting arms, as has the African Union's head, John Kufuor. Well-connected Kikuyu business leaders are trying to persuade Mr. Kibaki to give in and form a government of national unity. In the meantime, Kenya burns.
Just this past week, the chairman of the Kenyan Electoral Commission (ECK), Samuel Kivuitu, has said he announced the presidential election results under pressure.
When asked if indeed President Mwai Kibaki won the elections, Kivuitu told journalists at his Nairobi residence on Tuesday night: "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election".
Kivuitu continued with his stunning revelations when he said he took the presidential election winner's certificate to State House, Nairobi, after "some people threatened to collect it while I'm the one mandated by law to do so. I had thought of resigning, but thought against it because I don't want people to say I'm a coward," he said. The embattled chairman made the revelations shortly after meeting with 22 ECK commissioners. "We are culprits as a commission. We have to leave it to an independent group to investigate what actually went wrong," the chairman said.
The 2007 general elections have fallen short of key international and regional standards for democratic elections. Most significantly, they were marred by a lack of transparency in the processing and tallying of presidential results, which raises concerns about the accuracy of the final result of this election.
In a large number, almost a third, of polling stations visited, party agents were not given a copy of the result sheets. Furthermore, in more than a third of polling stations visited, the results were not posted at the polling station level, fundamentally undermining transparency measures in the process.
In Central Province (Mr. Kibaki’s home area), the majority of EU observer teams experienced difficulties in obtaining the results for each polling station from returning officers during the tally process.
In several constituencies, including Mathioya, Koleleni, Mvita, Kisauni, Changamwe, Likoni and Central/North Imenti, the returning officers refused to provide constituency results to the EU observers before these results were confirmed in Nairobi. The constituency results form in Kangema showed to EU observers was only signed by a party agent of PNU (Mr. Kibaki’s party).
Serious inconsistencies and anomalies were identified in the results announced by the ECK. For example, in Molo and Kieni, there were significant differences between presidential election results reported by EU observers at the constituency level and results announced by the ECK at national level.
Additionally, at the ECK headquarters, the EU Chief Observer was shown forms on which the election results for constituencies 205 (Lari) and 96 (Kandara) had been changed. Furthermore, for Kerugoya, EU observers reported a discrepancy of more than 10,000 votes in the official turnout given for presidential and legislative elections.
While the result of the elections were announced, the official figures for all the constituencies are still not available and adequate measures have not been taken at all levels to ensure the results can be correlated in the public domain.
Mr. Mwai Kibaki on January 8th, appointed half his cabinet minutes before an African Union mediator landed in Nairobi, enraging the opposition and ending hopes of a swift end to the country's political and social crisis. Kenyan law demands that ministers of parliament be sworn in first before they can be appointed to cabinet post. Mr. Kibaki named cabinet members even before parliament has opened. This raises serious questions about the legality of his cabinet and his own actions.
Protests broke out immediately in the opposition stronghold of Kisumu and in Nairobi's slums, where hundreds of people have already been killed over election rigging charges. Western diplomats, who on Monday had persuaded the opposition leader Raila Odinga to call off his campaign of mass action, were angered by Kibaki's decision to fill all the key ministries as peace talks were about to begin.
Jendayi Frazer, the top US diplomat for Africa, who is in Nairobi trying to encourage a power-sharing deal between Kibaki and Odinga, immediately sought an audience with the president at his State House residence to register her disapproval. "This is a complete reversal of what the government had led us to believe would happen," one western diplomat said in Nairobi last night. "The level of tension is going to be ratcheted up instantly."
Kibaki appointed 15 ministers, including finance, defense, internal security and justice, from within his own party. Kalonzo Musyoka, leader of a third, smaller opposition party, ODM-Kenya, was named vice-president and minister for home affairs, while his fellow party member Samuel Poghisio was made minister of information. Mr. Kalonzo came in third in the national elections as president, but his agreement to become vice president has angered many of his own supporters.
Mr. Kibaki signaled his intention to ignore attempts for outside help earlier when a government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, told the Standard newspaper that there was "nothing to be mediated".
Salim Lone, Odinga's spokesman, said last night: "This is simply another attempt to undermine the mission of John Kufuor (the African Union Mediator and president of Ghana). It's not only a blow to the peace process; it shows that Kibaki has no intention of even starting the process."
On January 9th, Mr. Kibaki flew by helicopter to camps of Kikuyu in Molo, Burnt Forest, Eldoret, and Cherengani. Instead of speaking words of conciliation, Mr. Kibaki promised protection to his fellow Kikuyu while he sought punishment on those who had initiated the violence. He also promised that the government would restore their land and rebuild their houses. Such defiance and bold promises angered even more the opposition because Mr. Kibaki is putting all the blame on them for the country’s current situation.


Rumors
Several rumors are floating around Kenya that give rise to speculation and may reflect national turmoil. The first suggests two of Mr. Kivuitu’s sons have been killed in mob violence. The second rumor suggests former president and close friend of Mr. Kibaki, Mr. Daniel Arap Moi, is said to have left the country and is currently in either America or Australia.

My Analysis
While political parties were mostly formed along tribal lines, the protests, burnings, and violence has been more politically targeted than tribally targeted. It is too simplistic to say that this is tribal violence only. Prominent Kikuyu leaders are in Odinga’s party and some of the violence reported was against fellow tribesmen who were PNU supporters especially in south Rift Valley Province. Additionally, Kikuyu critics such as Professor Wangare Mathai, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2002, said Mr. Kibaki had lost the elections and he should accept them as she had accepted her own loss of a parliamentary seat.

My Projections (best guesses)
I am not an expert on Kenya, but based upon the advice and insights of Kenyan friends and my own personal experience, I give the following projections:
1. Mr. Kibaki is not going to step down easily.
2. Mr. Odinga is not going to accept Kibaki’s presidency.
3. Neither will accept a power sharing plan for government.
4. Kikuyu (Mr. Kibaki’s supporters) in areas outside their home land will continue to move into camps for protection in numbers.
5. Economic difficulties will continue if not increase. Remember that Kikuyu hold a large portion (perhaps up to half) the business interests in Kenya including many of the taxis, trucking, vegetable supplies for Nairobi, small businesses, and many government held positions of authority. Continued violence targeting Kikuyu will undermine all these sectors.
6. A power sharing government will be almost an impossible option. The opposition party has too large of a voice to remain inactive and feel they have been robbed of the presidency. They will work to undermine the president and his supporters.
7. Kikuyu leaders may ask Mr. Kibaki to step down in order to diffuse hostility toward them. If this happens, Mr. Kibaki’s power base will crumble.
8. If Mr. Kibaki continues to push hard against the will of the people, Kikuyu in camps may be targeted for killing as well as other PNU supporters.
9. Prolonged tension may create food, fuel, and basic commodities shortages throughout Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan, and parts of Tanzania.
10. There is a possibility that parliament will refuse to convene until the issue of the presidency has been decided.
Shawn Tyler

Mbale Mission TeamNew Testament Churches of ChristPO Box 1790Mbale, Uganda E. Africa

int+256-772-441504 Shawn cellint+256-772-537533 Linda cell

www.mbalemissionteam.org