Kenya has a new President

We’ve had mixed emotions about being in Kenya at the time of the election.  Caution around security has unfortunately meant that we haven’t ridden our bikes as much as we would have liked (losing 6 riding days in total) and missed out on experiencing much of the country from the saddle.  However the timing has given us a different insight into Kenya, seeing the people at their most politically active and experiencing African democracy first hand.

The voter turn-out was huge, finally tallied at 85%.  In a country of 40million people, many living in very rural communities, that is some achievement.  By way of contrast, the last time we got anywhere close to that in the UK was 84% in 1950; turn-out for the 2010 general election was a resurgent 65%.  Focused on electing their local governor rather than the president, the level of engagement that we witnessed in the remote communities in the north was clearly emblazed across their chests with t-shirts.  We were also interested to see candidates faces plastered on material that women would wrap around as skirts, or headscarves in the more Muslim areas.

It seems that whilst there are a smattering of class issues and political ideologies at play, tribal politics is a key component of Kenyan politics.  To overcome this and form a majority in parliament, two leading coalitions had been formed, each with their own presidential candidate - the Jubilee Alliance supporting Uhuru Kenyatta and CORD backing the present Prime Minister Raila Odinga.  Looking at the results for parliamentarians elected by each province there are very clear strongholds – along party (and more clearly tribal) rather than coalition lines.

We arrived in Nairobi (by bus – boo) as the presidential results were being announced.  To avoid a runoff between the top two candidates, a clear winner required 50% of the vote (accumulating at least 25% in 50% of the provinces, a new election requirement in order to ensure an element of cross tribal support).  After much counting and recounting Kenyatta achieved this with a minute margin; coming in with 50.07%.  His main rival Odinga has made claims of foul play.  With the cloud of the violence that followed the 2007 election still looming large (not least as Kenyatta faces charges before the ICC for inciting this violence) Odinga was clear that he would challenge this result through the courts rather than with violence.

The claims of foul play are an interesting one.  A number of gripes were listed, in our opinion the number of these somewhat dilutes the argument.  However one major concern was that the machines purchased (at significant expense) from Canada to count the votes had failed, allegedly through tampering, requiring much of the counting to take place by hand.  This is a rather odd assertion, and it isn’t immediately clear how this results in being cheated out of victory.  It is interesting to wonder whether there is something in Kenyan (dare we say African?) politics about blame, the inability to admit defeat which leads to pointing the finger (however tenuously) elsewhere.  Or is it actually that the level of corruption and manipulation rife in African politics is beyond a degree we can conceive, and that there is a real chance that this doctoring did take place for the exact purpose of blurring the crispness of results?  We are in no position to judge which (or to what extent both) might be accurate, but the fact that we are unable to distinguish between these two behaviours makes me disappointed for the 85% who voted.

This uncertainty and accusations is not unique to the candidates.  Just to add another layer of complexity, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission have also faced some criticism in how the election was conducted; for the colours of the ballot papers (cream and white being too similar) and importantly dramatic changes in the number of spoiled ballots logged.  Initial estimates were that as much as 6% of ballots were spoiled, which in an election where the winner has a 0.07% margin is significant. This was later reduced to 1%, but was enough to cause consternation amongst both candidates. The ‘spoiling’ has largely been attributed to the complexity of voting for six different sets of candidates at the same time, from presidential down to local governor.  The outcome of these accusations being the undermining of trust in both people and process.

So what of that 85% of Kenyans who fought through the complications and voted?  Taking a taxi out for supper last night we saw hordes of Kenyatta supporters on the street.  Our driver explained that these people had come to collect some money from the winner for voting for him.  We explored this further.  We do not think that this was bribery – that came prior to the election when campaign teams visit the towns and villages with t-shirts, caps, possibly beer, possibly food.  Well, arguably not bribery so much as making voters aware of the candidate and some sense of their kindness and goodwill towards their community.  This gathering was in the expectation of some reward, and sharing in the celebration that their man had gained office.  The expectation was that they would be given maybe 100 shillings each, or some other small denomination, equating to less than a pound.   Whatever it was, whether they had in fact voted for Kenyatta or not, it was enough that hundreds of people felt it was worth gathering for and these are the masses in the population needed to turn 49% into 50.07%.