Kenya

Kenya

Kenya Elections 2007

On Dec. 27, 2007 a surprise victory for former president Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity over Raila Odinga of the Orange democratic Movement in the Kenyan presidential election was followed by arson and violence aroused by suspicions of vote rigging.

After the long wait for the presidential election results, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, Samuel Kivuitu, announced in the late afternoon of 30 December that Mwai Kibaki had won the election after all with 4,584,721 votes, versus 4,352,993 for Raila Odinga, and 879,903 for Kalonzo Musyoka.

All independent observers have said that the tallying process was so flawed that it is impossible to tell who won the presidential election. During national ballot counting, numerous irregularities were identified. According to Kenya’s human rights community, the election results are clearly invalid. The Kibaki government disputed the charges of illegitimacy and installed new cabinet members. The violence that erupted has shattered Kenya’s international image, undermined the economy of the region, displaced over 250,000, and cost the lives of nearly 600 people.

Since 1992, Kenya’s elections have been progressively better and fairer, culminating in the 2002 elections which were the best ever, and the 2005 constitutional referendum. The effect of this progression is that Kenyans finally believed in the power of the vote as a way of peacefully resolving differences, a fact confirmed by voting trends in the recent parliamentary elections that saw almost 70 percent of incumbents lose their seats. When this sense of empowerment was subverted, and peaceful legal spaces for protests were disallowed, it is not surprising that frustrations boiled over and violence ensued.