The International Criminal Courts

Posted on April 29, 2013 by David

Report from Kenya #228 – April 26, 2013

Since the new president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his deputy president, William Ruto have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague, I thought it appropriate to give my analysis of the International Criminal Courts. Notice that I have an “s” on “court’ because, in addition to the main one at the Hague, I include the ICC courts for Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and the former Yugoslavia. There are many negative criticisms of the courts which I will just list. Then I will turn to what I see as two major underlying fallacies of the current courts.

1. The courts are too slow taking many years for a case to conclude.

2. Cases result in few convictions

3. Courts are far from area where the atrocities occurred.

4. The courts are extremely expensive as the follow UN extravagant salary standards.

5. The prisoners are held in plush conditions unlike their surviving victims.

6. Except for former Yugoslavia tribunal, the courts have only targeted Africans.

7. The ICC is considered a tool of western governments, particularly the US which has not signed the treaty

8. Major war criminals such as George W Bush and Tom Blair are not indicted.

9. Indictments sometimes extend conflicts since those indicted have an added incentive to continue fighting and hopefully winning.

I myself have two basic, underlying concerns.

First, I think that the Courts have gone astray when they have been indicting various rebel warlords. The Courts should be protecting citizens of a country from their own government. When government officials commit atrocities and human rights violations on their own people, they should be the ones indicted. At the moment, frequently various extraneous rebels, bandits, and others are the ones being indicted. Sometimes, as the cases of the Ugandan and the Congolese governments, they have used the ICC as a place to send their political or military opponents so that it becomes just another tool of foreign policy.

For example, one of the people indicted in Kenya is Joshua arap Sang, a vernacular radio announcer. While I do not know the evidence against him for his broadcasts during the 2008 post election violence, it clearly was not in the same category as the other five original Kenyan suspects who were members of the Kenyan government and accused of being responsible for the violence. Yes, he should be held accountable for any hate speech that was broadcast on his radio station, but an international tribunal is not the right place because he was not a government spokesman nor did he work for a government controlled radio station.

In 2005, at the request of the Ugandan government, the ICC indicted Joseph Kony and three of his associates. They may have done terrible atrocities but they did not do this as part of the Ugandan government. During this time the Uganda army, while trying to hunt down Kony’s band, was accused of major atrocities. One of the deputy prosecutors of the ICC resigned when those responsible from the Uganda military were not indicted along with Kony. This is a clear case, in my opinion, of what is wrong with the ICC. They should have prosecuted those in the Ugandan military who were responsible for the atrocities.

My second objection is a little harder to express. If I would be accused of robbing a convenience store, shooting and killing the clerk, I would be charged with murder. In the trial, the prosecution would have to show that the story was accurate and that I was the one who killed the clerk. If I were found guilty, I would receive an appropriate sentence. This is the model that the ICC courts have implemented. When they accuse someone, they find specific crimes, specific incidences that they prosecute the defendants for. Usually their inducements include a number of particular gross violations where the ICC has substantial evidence of wrongdoing.

But those major government officials who use their powers invested in them as government do not just do a few isolated incidences. Frequently they don’t even kill or harm anyone directly themselves. Rather they develop an institutional, government setting that allows massive atrocities to occur, perhaps even overseeing and implementing the governmental sponsored programs. In other words, prosecution of specific incidences of atrocities is insufficient. It is the leadership, the guidance, the “masterminding” of atrocities that needs to be addressed. This cannot be done in the normal mode of my having killed the convenience shop clerk. There needs to be a completely different, all-encompassing approach where the total government sponsored leadership of the appropriate individuals is tried for all the crimes emulating from their leadership. This is, I think, a completely different level of jurisprudence that has yet to be developed, but it should be the role of the ICC, its supporters, and critics to develop this.

Report on Election Observation

Posted on April 6, 2013 by David

African Great Lakes Initiative Report on Observation of March 2013 Kenyan National Elections

By Kathy Ossmann Reported on April 6, 2013

Executive Summary

African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) and Friends Church Peace Teams (FCPT) were among several organizations which were accredited to observe Kenya’s national election on March 4, 2013. This observation was part of a peace building strategy to prevent election violence. Using a grassroots approach, we trained observers in several areas of western Kenya and assigned them to polling stations in their local communities.

Our observers reported that the conduct of the election varied considerably from station to station. In 19 of 83 (23%) polling stations there were no problems reported. However, some significant problems were noted in others. Overall we found IEBC irregularities including the failure of electronic systems in 34 stations (41%), inappropriate agent behavior in 11 (13%) and overt bribery in six (7%). In four polling stations our observers saw IEBC clerks issue multiple ballots for the presidential race which is clearly fraudulent. One of these stations also had 23% more presidential votes than in the other five races, yet as far as we know, those votes were still added to the national totals. Looking at the pervasive problems with IEBC manual and automated procedures leads us to the conclusion that fraud on a wide scale could have easily happened and most likely did. At a minimum we recommend that a thorough audit of the election process be conducted.

Background

On March 4, 2013 Kenya conducted national elections governed by the constitution adopted in 2010 and subsequent parliamentary acts. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) formed under that constitution was responsible for conducting the election. Its mission is “to conduct free and fair elections and to institutionalize a sustainable election process”. Passage of the new constitution and establishment of the IEBC were responses by Kenyans to the ethnic-fueled violence following the election in December 2007. Much attention has been given to the prevention of violence in the 2013 elections.

African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) and Friends Church Peace Teams (FCPT) were among several organizations with election observers accredited by the IEBC. Others included the Carter Center, the European Union, the African Union, the National Council of Churches in Kenya (NCCK), Quaker Peace Network-Africa, Turning the Tide, and a consortium of Kenyan civil society called Elections Observation Group (ELOG).

Voting occurred at polling stations for each election ward. The stations for larger wards had multiple streams, each with its own set of ballot boxes and IEBC officials. The standard IEBC staffing for a stream included a Presiding Officer (PO), Deputy Presiding Officer (DPO) and 6 clerks covering queue control, Electronic Validation of Identity (EVID), manual register check, issuance of ballot papers, assistance for voters who could not vote on their own, assistance with ballot boxes and inking of a finger on the left hand.

In addition to accredited observers, IEBC regulations allowed one agent for each political party to observe each polling station/stream. The Code of Conduct for agents required that they not interfere or intervene in the voting process. Further, no campaigning was allowed in or within 100 meters of a polling station. Agents who observed the counting were required to sign the official vote total forms (Forms 34 and 35) or to issue formal complaints if they did not agree with the totals.

In November 2012 IEBC re-registered all Kenyan voters (over 14 million) using a Biometric Validation Registration (BVR). The registration process included capture of each voter’s fingerprints and photograph. The intent was to produce a register of voters without duplication. At the polling stations, EVID kits were planned for validating the thumbprint of each voter against the register on election day.

Approach

For AGLI/FCPT, election observation was part of a larger strategy to prevent election violence in western Kenya that included alternatives to violence and trauma healing workshops, citizen reporters throughout the election cycle beginning prior to the registration of voters, and civic and voter education. These peace building and monitoring activities began three years prior to the elections because many election problems have their roots in actions which occur well before the voting. Citizen reporter training, for example, began in mid-2012 and continued until the end of the year with a total of 1208 trained. Throughout this period, AGLI/FCPT coordinated with other Quaker organizations having similar goals and complementary activities including Change Agents for Peace, International; Turning the Tide; and the Friends Theological College.

AGLI/FCPT focused violence prevention efforts on areas of western Kenya that had experienced violence in 2008 and, because of diverse ethnic populations, were susceptible to recurring violence in 2013. These included Turbo Constituency in Uasin Gishu County, Mount Elgon Constituency in Bungoma County, Vihiga Constituency in Vihiga County, and several constituencies in both Nandi and Kakamega counties. One location in Nyanza County was also included, not because of possible violence, but simply because we have a long-time lead facilitator who lives there.

AGLI/FCPT submitted names of 265 observers who were accredited by the IEBC. In day-long sessions observers were trained on the Code of Conduct for aspirants and political parties; processes for voting, counting and tallying; information in the “Guidelines and Code of Ethics” booklet IEBC provided for observers; and procedures for documenting and reporting observations. Upon completion of the sessions, 259 trainees received their IEBC badges and FCPT t-shirts and caps to wear for identification on election day.

Unlike other observer groups, AGLI/FCPT used a grassroots approach. Except for 3 international observers, all volunteers were Kenyans living in the focus areas. Wherever possible, observers were assigned to the polling station in which they had registered. This allowed them to vote and also meant that they were familiar with the IEBC clerks, agents and voters in that location. When we had enough in a single location, pairs of observers worked each stream at the polling station. Also contrary to other observer groups, AGLI/FCPT observers were not paid an allowance or provided with meals. This was possible since they were in polling stations near their homes and it ensured a high level of commitment to the process.

We also trained 1030 community observers, many of whom had been serving as citizen reporters, to observe the areas outside of polling stations and throughout their communities. These community observers reported through a call-in center (CIC) via SMS text messages. The CIC had been in use since we initiated citizen reporting in mid-2012. A total of 53 messages pertaining to the election came into the CIC (see Appendix B). Our CIC Coordinator managed these messages using SMSFrontline software which allowed us to keep the identity of the reporter confidential. This choice was made out of a concern for the safety of our citizen reporters/community observers. Consequently, unless the reporter included their location in a message, it is not possible to correlate every message with a polling station.

A total of 104 completed observation forms have been turned in from 112 observers who worked in 83 polling station/streams. The following table shows the breakdown for each county.

Locations of Observers and Polling Stations

County	Constituency	Number of Observers	Number of Polling Stations/Streams
Bungoma	TOTAL	43	31
	Mount Elgon	43	31
Kakamega	TOTAL	39	26
	Lugari	21	12
	Lurambi	1	1
	Mumias East	16	12
	Shinyalu	1	1
Nandi	TOTAL	9	8
	Aldai	4	4
	Chesumei	2	2
	Emgwen	2	1
	Tinderet	1	1
Nyanza	TOTAL	1	1
	Gem	1	1
Uasin Gishu	TOTAL	19	14
	Turbo	19	14
Vihiga	TOTAL	2	3
	Vihiga	2	3

Findings

In general our observations indicate that the quality of the election process varied greatly between polling stations and even between streams in a single polling station. This aligns with nation-wide reports of other organizations and the media. Factors in this variance were the leadership skills of the Presiding Officer (PO) and Deputy Presiding Officer (DPO), the competence of the IEBC clerks, and whether the EVID and electronic submission systems worked. While a number of stations we observed reported no problems, the majority of our observers found at least one at their assigned station. The problems can be grouped under three categories (in order of frequency observed): IEBC irregularities, inappropriate agent behavior, and bribery. The list of problems reported, grouped by category, can be found in Appendix A.

Polling Stations with No Problems

To begin with the positive reports, our election observers noted that 19 of 83 polling station/streams (25%) had no problems. In these stations all processes described in the IEBC booklet for observers were executed as planned including the EVID and electronic transmission of presidential results. Additionally, 21 of 53 SMS messages received by the CIC indicated no problems in and around polling stations. Of these SMS messages, 13 mentioned polling stations which were not covered by our accredited observers.

A total of 43 stations had people waiting in queues at closing time. The number at each station ranged from 1 to 150 with an average of 24. Tegat Primary School in Emgwen Constituency was the largest with 150. The second longest queue was Madengo Primary School in Lugari District with 100. All others were less than 100. All polling stations allowed those who were waiting to vote. Additionally, all polling stations which had delays in the start of voting remained open an equivalent amount of time at the close of voting.

IEBC Irregularities

IEBC irregularities occurred in 34 of the 83 polling station/streams that AGLI/FCPT observed, amounting to 41.5%. These irregularities were wide-ranging and included denial of access to accredited observers, failure to complete manual procedures, limited or no use of electronic systems, failure to provide secrecy for voters, inappropriate influencing of voters and issuance of multiple or unstamped ballot papers. SMS messages from our community observers included 14 in this category covering many of the same concerns.

AGLI/FCPT began encountering problems with IEBC performance during the issuance of observer badges. Our CIC Coordinator, Peter Serete, made 5 different trips from Kakamega to Nairobi to pick them up before they were completed. The badges were finally ready on March 24^th. Since we planned to distribute them at the end of each observer training session; that left us only one week to conduct the sessions throughout western Kenya. When we distributed the badges we discovered that 6 were spoiled and over 20 had mismatched names and photos that IEBC did not have time to correct. All of the thousands of observer badges needed for the election were being produced by a single staff member on one personal computer. IEBC had obviously underestimated the effort.

Problems with observer accreditation continued at polling stations. Seven observers encountered hostility or were refused access in eight different polling stations. Three were not allowed entry at four different stations. (One tried another station when refused at his initial assignment.) At least two different observers were asked to provide a signed secrecy agreement although IEBC had one on file for our organization and told us that was all that was necessary. When these observers returned with the requested document one of them was still turned away. Two more observers had their accreditation questioned but were eventually allowed access. Two others reported that the PO in their station would not allow them access to the ballot paper numbers and another was initially told not to write anything.

Thirty-one instances of IEBC failure to correctly complete manual procedures were reported. The most serious of these were 6 reports of improper ballot paper issuance. One observer reported to the PO that a clerk was issuing multiple presidential ballots to individual voters. The clerk was subsequently arrested and removed from the polling station, but an excessive amount of votes for president at that station was not challenged during the counting. A voter in Mount Elgon reported to AGLI/FCPT interviewers doing a follow-up on programs that he had been issued 10 presidential ballot papers. He refused to take 9 of them, but reported to us that a police officer who was voting was given 30 presidential ballots. Two other over-issuances were reported to POs who took corrective action. There were also 2 reports of clerks failing to stamp ballot papers causing them to be rejected during the counting.

Failure of IEBC electronic systems was pervasive. The most commonly reported causes for this failure were password issues and batteries which died. Observer reports indicate that computer batteries were lasting until sometime between 10 and 11:30 a.m. Since polls were required to be open from 6 a.m. until 5 p.m., the batteries were lasting less the half of the time required. Twenty-one stations observed were able to use the EVID system only part of the time. Another 10 couldn’t use it at all. This meant that 26.8% of the stations resorted to manual registers some or all of the time. Four SMS messages also indicated similar problems. Our observers reported that some manual registers were not organized effectively causing excessive time for clerks to find voters’ listings and shuffling of voters from one stream to another. Many stations were also unable to transmit the results of the presidential ballot count electronically. Observers reported 24 of 83 stations (29.3%) that did not do electronic submission. One SMS message was also received indicating the failure of this system.

Another category of IEBC irregularities included items affecting the secrecy of voting. In 2 reported instances the way booths were set up did not adequately maintain privacy. In 8 stations, crowds of voters (2 instances) or agents (6 instances) were able to observe voters as they marked ballots in the booths.

One serious irregularity involves failure to follow voter Identification procedures. These reports included failure to verify voter Identification, voters’ names missing from electronic and/or manual registers, and voters listed in the register for a polling station different from the one at which they registered. In one case, 88 voters were allowed to vote at the polling station where they had registered even though their names appeared on the register for a different station. In another, 80 voters who were certain they had registered were not allowed to vote at all because their names were missing.

Two POs and several agents were reported to have told voters how to vote. Other more minor irregularities were reported and can be seen in Appendix A.

While any one of these irregularities could be attributed to human error, the prevalence of problems in almost half of the stations observed indicates a more serious problem, one that opens the door for fraud. At the very least, in future elections IEBC must be required to test automated systems more thoroughly including capacity testing for large volumes, vet the temporary election staff more thoroughly, and provide more complete training.

Inappropriate Agent Behavior

Although agents were required to sign a Code of Ethics, our observers reported inappropriate agent behavior in 11 different polling stations (15.2%). These behaviors included campaigning in the polling station, watching how voters voted, telling voters how to vote and being uncooperative. In four of these instances a PO or security officer stopped the offense. Additionally, agents were involved in 3 instances of bribery described in the next section.

There was some lack of clarity regarding the procedures for helping voters who needed assistance which led to some of the inappropriate behaviors. In the IEBC training materials it states that a voter who needs assistance may include the disabled, pregnant women, elderly, and illiterate voters. Such persons are permitted to bring someone with them to assist under certain limitations. If they do not, the PO may assist them. However, when our observers got to polling stations, the POs were asking agents to observe this assistance, usually one agent each time on a rotating basis. In some cases agents were doing the assistance without the presence of IEBC staff. Partly this was due to a high number of people needing assistance. There were times when more than one voter needed assistance at the same time. The IEBC needs to either abide by its published procedures or revise them. The current situation undermined the voter’s right to vote in secrecy. Allowing agents to observe the assistance perpetuates the possibility of coercion of voters.

Bribery

While bribery has the lowest percentage of the major problem areas, it is still a significant issue in Kenyan elections. On election day we received a number of reports regarding observable bribery (see Appendix A). Accredited observers noted 8 instances of bribery taking place in the vicinity of 6 polling stations, 7.3% of the stations observed. It is safe to assume that if bribery occurred in full view of accredited observers, these instances were just the tip of an iceberg with much more done less openly. This assumption is borne out by 6 SMS messages reporting bribery in at least 4 communities. In fact, bribery was the most common problem submitted to the CIC during the period of campaigning. While bribery is illegal, our observations indicate that it is widespread with both politicians and voters expecting it to take place. Until this is prosecuted and punished, voting in Kenyan elections will not be completely free and fair.

Fraud

In the light of the CORD coalition’s Supreme Court petition claiming that the election was fraudulent, AGLI/FCPT has studied whether our observation data provides any confirmation of this claim. We cannot reach any definitive conclusions regarding extensive fraud because our data is limited. For example, we did not assign observers to tallying centers to verify that the polling station counts were transferred correctly onto the tallying forms. Additionally, we had no form to report observations for those observers who did monitor the tallying at the constituency level such as a group at Mount Elgon. Also, we observed only 83 of over 30,000 polling stations and the ones we observed included only one of the constituencies (Mount Elgon) whose totals are contested in the petition.

We do, however, see some disturbing evidence of fraud in some polling stations and the likelihood of more wide-spread fraud. This evidence includes:

An instance of the total number of presidential votes significantly exceeding the totals for the other 5 races
Observed irregularities in the issuance of ballot papers
The failure of electronic systems meant to prevent vote rigging
Unrealistically high percentage (98%) of votes for one presidential candidate in one polling station

Presidential Total Excessive and Issuance of Multiple Ballots

One clear case of fraud reported by an AGLI/FCPT observer occurred at the Eldoret West Social Hall in Turbo Constituency. The observer saw the IEBC clerk issuing multiple presidential ballots to voters. When this was reported the PO notified the police who arrested the clerk. The final vote count shows that the total votes for president were 588 while the other five contests had 496, 497, 493, 434, and 468 (an average of 478). The presidential race had 110 more votes than that average or 23% more votes. This variance is too large and the totals for the other races too consistent for this to be accounted for by people deciding not to cast all of their ballots. The combination of the vote total variance and the arrest of the clerk for issuing multiple ballots clearly indicate fraud. And yet, our observer noted that no agent protested this count so we presume it was added to the national totals.

AGLI/FCPT observers saw clerks issuing multiple ballots in three other polling stations in clear violation of law. This fraudulently increases votes for a particular aspirant especially in a constituency that is the stronghold of a particular candidate. One instance of this observed over-issuance was at a polling station in Mount Elgon. This is one of the constituencies that the CORD petition states failed to note the number of registered voters on its Form 36, the form used to document constituency totals. While we have no report from our observers regarding the Form 36 in question, the CORD accusation of fraud correlates with our observation of fraudulent over-issuance at a polling station in the same constituency.

We also received two reports of clerks who did not stamp the ballots correctly and one report of a clerk putting a voter’s ballots into the wrong ballot boxes. Since unstamped ballot papers and ballots placed in the wrong boxes are rejected, these both represent ways that IEBC officials can fraudulently reduce the number of votes for a candidate.

EVID System Failure

While failure of the EVID system is not in and of itself fraudulent, it was a tool that played a significant role in IEBC’s fraud prevention plan. It was intended, first of all, to verify a registered voter’s identity through biometric data and, secondly, prevent registered voters from voting more than once. The EVID was not working at all in some polling stations and only part of the time in others. It failed in 26.8% of the stations we observed. This forced IEBC election staff to use manual registers in a significant number of polling stations. These registers were not only cumbersome, slowing down the voting process and creating long lines, but also ineffective in preventing duplicate voting. We had several reports of poorly organized manual registers, of voters’ names missing from registers, of a voter being on the biometric list but not the manual, and of voters’ names appearing in a different polling station’s register than the one in which they had registered. Additionally, two observers noted that the IEBC staff either didn’t check identification cards or let people vote who only had a receipt from their registration. Given these problems, it is doubtful that the use of manual registers provided adequate voter identification.

It was widely believed before the election that the EVID system would prevent duplicate voting by interacting with a master register. Indeed, IEBC justified the purchase and deployment of the EVID kits on this basis. After the election the Daily Nation revealed that the system was set up without a link allowing individual polling stations to update the master register. This means that there was not any electronic means for preventing people from voting more than once.

Prevention of duplicate voting using manual procedures depends on a voter’s name appearing once and only once in a single register and on all clerks diligently crossing off the names as people voted. The poor organization of the manual registers leads us to question whether they did have voters’ names listed only once in one register. In many polling stations we observed, the agents and election observers could not clearly see that a clerk was crossing off names and could not validate that it was always done.

Inking of fingers was another manual method of preventing duplicate voting. We received 3 reports of failure to ink fingers. In fact, some observers commented that the setup in the polling station did not ensure that all those who voted received the ink marking. Frequently, the clerk responsible for inking also had other responsibilities such as assisting voters with placing ballots into the correct boxes. It was difficult for that person to complete both responsibilities when the polling station was busy. It was also sometimes impossible for the one inking to stay by the exit to make sure everyone leaving had a mark.

Even if the EVID system had functioned well, there was no effective means to prevent duplicate voting in this election. The manual methods were the same that had been used and were suspect in previous elections. While this does not prove that duplicate voting occurred, considering all the problems with the procedures to ensure that only registered voters voted and to prevent duplicate voting, there is no doubt that the door was left open for fraud to occur.

Electronic Transmission System Failure

The transportation of paper ballots and tallying forms from polling stations to tallying centers at various levels takes considerable time and covers an enormous amount of space leaving another door open for fraud. To prevent manipulation of vote counts during this process, at least for the presidential contest, IEBC planned to have the total votes for presidential candidates electronically transmitted from each polling station/stream. While they clearly stated that the manual count was official and the electronically transmitted count provisional, it was clear that if there was a substantive difference between the two, the results would be contested.

AGLI/FCPT observers from 23 polling stations (28%) reported that POs did not electronically transmit the presidential results. Later during the national tallying, IEBC announced that they would not be using electronically transmitted counts as flaws were found in that system. As with other problems, this does not prove fraud. However, the loss of this parallel means of count transmission leaves observers with no way to validate the reasonableness of the totals in the presidential race.

Unrealistic Presidential Totals

One claim in CORD’s petition was regarding constituencies where the vote totals exceeded the number of registered voters. Our data does not include enough polling stations in enough constituencies to support or deny that this happened. However, we noted that in the stronghold areas of the major candidates throughout the country, “favorite sons” received an unrealistically high percentage of the votes.

The only stronghold polling station that we observed was the Ober Primary School in the Gem District of Siaya County. This county is in Raila Odinga’s home area and voted overwhelming for him as president. In the observed polling station there were 574 votes for Odinga, 4 votes for all other candidates and 9 rejected ballots giving Raila 98% of the vote. Even with the strong pattern of ethnic voting in Kenyan elections, this seems to be unrealistically high.

Voting percentages in the upper 90%s were common in this presidential election in the ethnic areas of each candidate. This is another indication of potential fraud, this time on the part of all major candidates.

Conclusions

While the only fraudulent acts that we directly observed were the issuances of multiple presidential ballots in a few polling stations, the overwhelming evidence of the many ways that fraud could have happened leads to the conclusion that fraud on a larger scale did occur. It is regrettable that the Supreme Court proceedings did not delve further into evidence of extensive fraud. Much analysis remains to be done to uncover what did or did not happen in this election.

We strongly recommend that the IEBC and an external party undertake thorough audits of voting and tallying procedures. The 2010 Bill of Rights guarantees Kenyans the right to”free, fair and regular elections”. That right was not protected in the election of March 4, 2013. The IEBC bears the responsibility for ensuring that Kenyans can exercise that right. It is critical to the future of democracy in Kenya that reliable electoral systems be established for subsequent elections.

Lessons Learned

This is the first time that AGLI/FCPT mounted extensive peace building efforts focusing on a national election. As might be expected some things worked well and others need improvement. The things that worked well and should be repeated include:

Use of citizen reporters throughout the entire election cycle
Pairing observers at polling stations/streams
Use of a detailed reporting form

Most observer groups mobilize for a short period of time beginning just a few weeks before the election. By initiating citizen reporting months before the elections, AGLI/FCPT had continuous information about happenings and concerns in our focus areas. This gave us perspective on election issues and allowed adaptation and refinement of our plans for observation.

Pairing observers allowed for better results because different people notice different things. Also, when there are two observers, it allowed individuals to take breaks for meals and rest while maintaining continual observation, a necessary aspect of effective election observation.

Our observer report form consisted of two pages on both sides with room on the last side for extensive comments and notes. It was structured chronologically with questions about set-up of the polling station/stream at the beginning and vote counts at the end. Use of this structured form ensured that we received consistent, comprehensive information from each observation. The form also made it easier to compile and analyze the data collected.

Our most effective area of observation was the Mount Elgon Constituency where we had both the highest number of observers and the largest number of polling stations/streams. It should also be noted that Mount Elgon is an area in which AGLI/FCPT expended considerable effort dealing with violence and intimidation, particularly during the pre-election period. These efforts included multiple workshops to deal with trauma healing, support for victims of violence and intimidation, and intervention to prevent the cycle of revenge violence. All of this contributes to a large number of people in Mount Elgon who have been affected by AGLI/FCPT programs.

We had a total of 42 observers in Mount Elgon who submitted completed written reports, 38% of the total reports submitted. Mount Elgon also had a high rate of those trained who completed their assignments. The volunteers were spread out to cover 31 polling stations providing the most coverage we had in a single constituency. Our mobilizer in this area, Erastus Chesondi, is known to be extremely effective and proved so again.

The major areas for improvement are:

Assign observers to tallying centers
Have text-in process for observers to send significant subsets of data
Reword and/or redesign report form where needed
Train and enable regional mobilizers
Set clearer expectations for mobilizers and observers
Analyze reasons why fewer than 50% of those trained as observers submitted reports
Clarify the responsibilities of citizen reporters

Assignments for our observers were to polling stations. We told observers, if they felt able, to move on to the constituency tallying center. Since the counting in most polling stations lasted until well after midnight, only a few observers, such as a group in Mount Elgon, went to a tallying center. The lack of direct reports from tallying stations made it difficult to assess the counting process for the whole election. Next time it would be more effective to be able to track totals at least up to the constituency level. Since the televised coverage is announced by constituency this would give us a way to verify that our polling stations were counted correctly at all levels.

In order to do this, we need to specifically assign observers to tallying stations at least at the constituency level. We also need a way for polling station observers to pass along their totals to the volunteers at the tallying station giving us the ability to link counts from the grassroots up to higher levels. If we have enough volunteers we could also assign some to the county tallying centers. Since our volunteer base is in western Kenya we would have to cooperate with other groups to observe tallying all the way to the national level. This expansion of observation assignments would require either more volunteers or the assignment of fewer observers at the polling station level.

Another strategy for implementing bottom-to-top review would be to select one or two constituencies in which we assign observers to all polling stations/streams and also to related constituency and county tallying stations. This would enable us to track all the votes from a constituency through the entire tallying process. To do this would require intensive recruitment of observers in the selected constituencies. Mount Elgon was the constituency in which we had the highest concentration of observers this year so would be a possible choice for such a focus in the next election.

It took us weeks to collect, collate and analyze observers’ reports. On the other hand, we had a CIC making it easy for community observers to send SMS messages. In future elections, we could plan a subset of information that polling station observers would text to the CIC immediately thus giving us the ability to come to more timely conclusions. For example, ELOG had some items on their written report about arrival at the polling station (such as the number of polling officers present) and the presidential totals that were designed to be texted to a central monitoring office. Additionally, we should devise a faster method for gathering the written reports.

While our detailed report forms worked well there were items that can be improved. For example, the capture of ballot paper numbers was more complex than we realized and required much more space than we allowed on the form. Based on the responses, some items were not clearly understood. For example, we asked observers to notate the number of voters in “line” at different times of day. It would be better to use the word “queue” and to specify that it is the queue outside the polling station not inside that is meant in the question.

AGLI/FCPT needs to build a stronger network of mobilizers to increase effectiveness in the next election. This can be done in several ways, such as mentoring and training new and inexperienced people and recruiting additional area leaders. We can learn from the success of the Mount Elgon area this year how to more effectively mobilize in other areas for the next election.

The whole process of recruiting and training volunteers for election observation was very rushed and last-minute this year. This was due in good part to the difficulty of getting clear information, training materials and identification badges from IEBC. Presuming the process remains relatively the same for the next election, AGLI/FCPT can begin the work earlier and do a more effective job. One area that suffered from the limited timeframe was the communication of expectations for both mobilizers and observers. For example, some observers expected to be paid a “sitting allowance” because other observer organizations do that. This resulted in some who did not complete the work. Next time we need to clearly communicate this to volunteers before they attend a training session and, perhaps, require that they sign a statement that they understand there will be no payment.

Another area of expectation setting that would improve effectiveness is in regard to pairs of observers assigned to a single polling station/stream. Most of the pairs this time were both at the polling station the whole time. By providing a printed “shift schedule” at the training, these pairs could manage their time more effectively providing opportunities for meals and rest periods. This would also ensure that more of the polling stations have coverage through the whole operation. We had 13 forms that were clearly incomplete and several others where it was unclear if the final count numbers were incomplete or just incorrect. It is simply too long a day from 5 am until well after midnight to expect individuals to cover without breaks. Additionally, observer pairs were unsure how to complete the written forms with some combining observations on a single form and others submitting duplicate forms making it hard to do tallying of the observations.

We can also improve the rate of completion from our election observers. With 250 completing their training and 111 turning in completed forms we got only a 44% result from our training investment. One improvement is to develop a more effective method for timely collection of observer report forms. We may still have outstanding forms from this year that haven’t been collected. While we know a certain number of those who haven’t submitted forms dropped out over the issue of payment, it would be helpful to have mobilizers follow up with others to determine the reasons that their forms haven’t been turned in. Knowing the reasons makes it possible to address them next time around.

Out of 1208 citizen reporters who were trained, only about 300 have actively submitted messages. It would be helpful to understand why the others weren’t as active. It could be that the areas where they live did not have problems. A follow-up with those who have not been responding would provide better information for future planning. During the next election cycle it would help to have a regular check-in procedure so that we hear from the CRs whether or not they observe problems.

Overall, the efforts of AGLI/FCPT observers were impressive and useful. Some observers commented that they felt their presence kept others in the polling station on their good behavior. So in addition to providing information about the conduct of the election, observers also serve as deterrents to fraud and misconduct. Given the lack of efficacy and fairness in this election process, future observation is especially important to the development of Kenya’s democracy. The work of election observation aligns well with the peace building mission of the both AGLI and FCPT and should be continued and expanded for future elections.

APPENDIX A – Specific Problems Reported by Observers

Category	Report	Constituency	Polling Station	Notes
Bribery
	Bribery and campaigning at polling station	Lugari	Madengo
	Bribes given by aspirant in village close to polling station	Lugari	Mwivona
	Agent caught bribing by security but set free	Lugari	Mwivona
	Campaigning in line and offer of money	Mt. Elgon	Nomorio Primary
	Agents could give out money for votes	Mumias East	Mukambi/2
	Voters would not vote unless bribed	Mumias East	Bumini/2
	Bribery by ODM campaigners	Mumias East	Mukambi/2
	Bribery by one agent	Shinyalu	Mukulusu
Inappropriate Agent Behavior
	Agents complained loudly and bitterly	Aldai	Kiboboi	Observer spoke to them about setting an example and they cooled down
	Agents interrupted voting process	Gem	Ober Primary
	Agents speaking to voters about how to vote	Lugari	Lumakanda Primary/1
	Agents watching voters in booths	Lugari	Lumakanda Primary/2
	Agents allowed to assist illiterate	Mt. Elgon	Chepyuk Primary
	Agent assisting voter without PO	Mt. Elgon	Peresten Primary/1	Reported and corrected
	Campaigning by agents	Mt. Elgon	Kongit Primary	Stopped by security quickly
	Agents complaining frequently	Mt. Elgon	Nomorio Primary
	Agents tried to help illiterate	Mt. Elgon	Sendera	PO corrected
	Agent intruded on voter in booth and helped mark	Mumias East	Mugambi Primary
	Agents could see voting and influence	Mumias East	Mukambi/2
IEBC Irregularities
	DPO badge missing	Aldai	Kamemei
	Only 5 clerks	Aldai	Kamemei
	80 names missing on register	Aldai	Kiboboi	Observer herself was missing, none allowed to vote
	Observer accreditation questioned	Aldai	Morongiot Primary
	PO told those who didn’t know how to vote who to vote for	Aldai	Morongiot Primary
	No screening on booths, voting not secret	Aldai	Morongiot Primary
	Clerks assisting illiterate read names too fast	Chesumei	Kapkitara	Reported and corrected
	Clerks issuing more than one of each ballot paper	Chesumei	Kapkitara	Reported and corrected
	Elderly women in line collapsed, no medical staff on hand	Chesumei	Kapkitara
	Secrecy compromised by crowd	Gem	Ober Primary
	No food for clerks led to dosing	Gem	Ober Primary
	Improper issuance of ballot papers	Gem	Ober Primary	Not stamped, no directions given to voters on how to vote
	DPO chased away observers	Lugari	Kokomaiti
	Denied observer access to ballot book to get serial numbers	Lugari	Kokomaiti
	Occasionally failed to ink fingers	Lugari	Lumakanda Primary/1
	PO initially ordered observers not to write anything	Lugari	Mwivona	Adjusted later
	IEBC officials sleeping	Lugari	Mwivona
	Clerks didn’t allow observers to look at ballot paper books	Lugari	Mwivona
	Not enough voting booths for number of registered voters, used desks	Luramba	Kakamega J. Mosque	3 booths for over 700 registered voters
	Let people in without identity verification	Luramba	Kakamega J. Mosque	Corrected
	Some POs hostile to observers	Luramba	Kakamega J. Mosque
	Counts not posted	Mt. Elgon	Peresten Primary/2
	Illiterate people not assisted	Mt. Elgon	Peresten Primary/2
	PO assisting voters without witness	Mt. Elgon	S.D.A. Cheptais	Reported and corrected
	Secrecy not maintained because PO and agent assisted	Mt. Elgon	Kibuk Primary
	Clerk placed a voter’s ballot in wrong box	Mt. Elgon	Kibuk Primary
	Voter given 2 Presidential ballots	Mt. Elgon	Kibuk Primary	PO corrected
	Voters allowed to vote without ID cards	Mt. Elgon	Kimaswa	Allowed to vote with “election cards”
	Some ballot papers not stamped so rejected	Mt. Elgon	Kiptungurwo	Minor numbers of rejected ballots
	Clerk directing voters how to vote	Mt. Elgon	Nomorio Primary
	Some ballots didn’t have rubber stamp	Mt. Elgon	Sesik Primary
	Assistance wasn’t given to illiterates	Mt. Elgon	Sesik Primary
	Fingers were not being inked	Mt. Elgon	Sesik Primary
	Clerk issued 10 presidential ballots to voter who refused them, then issued 30 to a police officer	Mt. Elgon	Unknown	Reported by the voter during a follow-up interview on AGLI/FCPT programs
	Voters names missing on register	Mumias East	Malaha
	Some voters didn’t get inked	Mumias East	Mugambi Primary
	88 voters showed as registered elsewhere but complained and were eventually allowed to vote	Turbo	St. Andrew	Polling station sent names to other station to update their register
	Clerk issuing 2 presidential ballots	Turbo	Social Hall – Eldoret West	Reported, clerk arrested and removed, count reflected 23% more presidential votes than other contests
	First polling station required that observer present signed secrecy form, then refused entry when presented, went to another station and was also refused for the same reason	Vihiga	Multiple	A secrecy form signed by the FCPT Field Coordinator was on file with the IEBC and held to be sufficient for all our observers, observers in other locations were not required to present this form
	Polling Officer did not post results	Multiple	Multiple
	Polling Officer did not electronically transmit counts for presidential election	Multiple	Multiple

Appendix B – Call-in Center Text Messages

Category	Text Message
Election Day Broadcast
	FRIENDS CHURCH PEACE TEAMS WISH TO THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN CITIZEN REPORTING ON 2013 ELECTIONS. REPORT ANY INSECURITY, INTIMIDATION OF VOTER, VIOLENCE AND BRIBERY.
No Problems
	At the moment at Eldoret North, Kiplombe Ward Social Hall, the process is going on smoothly, it’s fast and voters are patient. The area is peaceful with enough security.
	Voting has started well and its environment is calm.
	The voting process has started and there is peace after peace agents talk to them
	Reported on duty at Kongit, environment good for election.
	Voting at Mwivona Primary School started a half hour late and is going on well.
	I know I am out of western area but just to let you know that here in Nairobi, Mbagathi polling station, voting is going on peacefully, nothing alarming observed.
	Uasin Gishu, Labuiywet polling centre – voting is going on well I’m monitoring the process from 6.20am. Voter turn out is good. No tension around people are voting and going home.
	Things are in control will be back to you later
	Everything is under control security wise and there is no bribery/intimidation.
	Turbo constituency, Lower Kipkarren Station: It is peaceful no any violent instances witnessed or reported. An aspirant for national assembly has passed by but there has been calm all through hope the same to the end shall enhance peace.
	I am in Eldoret Town. Elections are going on well even in outside stations. No serious case is witnessed where I am
	No problem in Shandakabras South
	So far voting is going on well without any irregularities.
	The election here at polling station 085 is being conducted successfully
	The voting ended well at Lugari and the security was good with no interruption at 5:30 pm
	On my side people voted peacefully: I didn’t see any anomalies.
	No unusual incidents in Chesikaki Primary School Polling Centre No 031.
	Report from Hamuyundi polling station in Chavakali area. Voting was well done from 5:00am to 5:00pm we had peace until now people are waiting patiently for the results.
	Am now in the constituency tallying centre (Kibuk Hall). Results are being announced as they arrive. With me are our team of observers who have done a wonderful voluntary job as from yesterday! Peaceful exercise
	Praise be unto GOD! We had peaceful and fair election
	In Tarus polling station, Turbo the process started at 6:30 am, the exercise goes well and ended at 6 pm, peacefully, no tension at all
Bribery
	The same aspirant was dishing money out at my home area at 1am. I was called and informed.
	I am at Lukusi market in Shinyalu constituency. There is a crowd of people who say they are waiting for the aspirants to give them money.
	MP aspirant in Shinyalu still campaigning and dishing out money today
	In Cheptais Primary School, one agent was in the center and a young boy came to call him, then I watched as he went out to meet 3 women. He put his hand in his pocket and I signaled the police. Police taking care of it now.
	at South Kabras in all stations few bribery seen
	aspirant dishing out money at Olikango
IEBC Irregularities
	In Cheptais primary school, the challenge is some names are not in the register.
	I could not get permission from IEBC to be inside polling station
	Lumakanda using manual register and many voters have not voted
	Mbihi voters have refused to vote because there are no BVR machines.
	In Vihiga County there are polling stations in shortage of security officers.
	IEBC wants letter from the organization to allow me to observe
	EVID down and PO told to go with the available manual materials and wait for next communication.
	There is a woman in Mbihi polling station who has not voted because her name is not in the register yet she registered at the same place.
	The voter whose name is not appearing in the register has been adviced by the P.O. to wait for the BVR which has low batteries. The P.O. has been adviced to use manual kit as he waits for batteries from the tallying centre.
	Kakamega County: Milimani Health Centre, voting delayed up to 7:00am.There were no proper arrangements, clerks were rude and incompetent.
	lines were very long
	I arrived at Kona Primary School Polling Station at 5.42 am. Voters started casting ballots at 6.42 am due to insufficient lighting. Voters were obedient and no bad incident occurred.
	The presiding officers were adviced to send numbers of presidential votes immediately after counting but the server is off. And so they have been adviced to write manually and take papers at the tallying stations.
	Mahanga Lwandeti location. We voted well, it started at 8 a.m. due to machine error.
	At this station of Lwakhakha , machines are not working, we have not started.
	There are rumors that four ballot boxes have been found on Uganda border entering Kenya heading to Sirisia Constituency on 6/03/013. the ballots were found on Lwakhakha Road. The residents of that area are saying that is just a rumor.
Violence/Threats
	One of the aspirants vehicles has been burnt in Bukura
	Car burned in the night.
	The Luos living at Stella are now threatening Luhyas telling them to prepare for war if Raila loses
	There was a little violence, but the police spotted the person and he was forced to vote and go away. From Mahanga Lwandeti location.
	A man by the name of Levi who is contesting for member of parliament MP seat in Sirisia Constituency was attacked previous night by unknown gang
	in chwele market,two poeple were killed,one of them was the watchman of mpesa and another one was a car watchman.

Other
	Most of the politicians are using their mother tongue to campaign, non-kalenjin are complaining because they don’t understand that language.
	One aspirant came to the polling station demanding to replace his agent whom he accused of betraying him which led to a commotion.
	in Mautu they make a lot of noise at night. I don’t know where police are.
	My observation within my neighbourhood is no youths are out of the house

Voting 95+ Percent in Strongholds

Posted on April 1, 2013 by David

Report from Kenya #225 – March 30, 2013

Note: On Saturday, March 30, the Kenya Supreme Court affirmed that Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto were elected president-elect and deputy president-elect with their swearing in on April 9. Raila Odinga has conceded defeat.

*****

Voter turnout for the March 4 election was 86%. This was lauded by both the local and international media as a fine example of democracy at work. Experts on elections, though, consider this high turn-out rate as an indicator of fraud. This posting covers the astronomical turn-out rates of registered voters in the ethnic strongholds, particularly of the Kikuyu and Luo.

There were two constituencies – one Kikuyu and one Luo – that had turnout rates of 96%. There were eleven constituencies with turn-out of 95% — five Kikuyu, five Luo, and one evenly matched. Consider all the registered voters who would be unable to cast a ballot:

People who had died between the time of registration and March 4.
People who were sick.
People who had to work and couldn’t stand in line for hours waiting to vote or who worked far from the voting station where they had registered.
Those who had no interest in the election.
Mothers who were unable to leave their children at home alone for the long time it took to vote. In particular, there were relatively few young women in line to vote, say compared to young men. Many older women did vote. In Lumakanda Primary School, the mostly male line on the right had 649 voters while the mostly female line on the left had 468. The middle line was mixed, but had more male than female voters.
Others who got discouraged staying in line for long hours and went home without voting.
People from the minority tribes in an area who registered where they lived, but left because of fear of violence. Our citizen reporters reported numerous cases like this; for example, one said that all Kikuyu had left the small Luhya town of Mbale because of fear of violence against them.
People who were late getting to the polling station.
People who went to the wrong polling station and were unable to vote. One election observer found eighty names missing, including her own, from the station where she had registered, with their names probably being on a register elsewhere. Another election observer reported that eighty-eight names were assigned to another polling station and the presiding officer (illegally) let them vote and sent their names to the polling station where they were enrolled.

It is inconceivable that all these categories of non-voters would only equal four or five out of a hundred registered voters. Moreover the IEBC had estimated the number of eligible voters in a constituency based on the 2009 census and most of the Kikuyu constituencies enrolled over 100% of the estimated voting age population. For example, Lari constituency enrolled 102.1% of the estimated number of voters and had a 96% voter turn-out. Overall in the country only 79% of the expected 18 million voters registered so this vastly exceeded the national average. While this was true of most Kikuyu constituencies, it was not for the Luo constituencies. Presidential candidate Raila Odinga, a Luo, has been criticized for not having conducted a major registration drive in his strongholds. Although the Kikuyu are only 17% of Kenyans, the five counties of central province, 11.3% of the total Kenyan population, alone accounted for 15.3% of the registered voters. At least one third of the Kikuyu live outside of the counties of Central province. If they registered at the same rate, then 23% of the voters – a 6% premium — would have been Kikuyu.

A high registration rate is useful only if the vast majority of voters vote along tribal lines. Here is an example from one of Raila’s strongholds. Our election observer recorded the following tally at his polling station:

Raila Odinga 574

Uhuru Kenyatta 2

Others 2

Spoiled 9

Total votes 583

Raila got 98.5% of the total votes and 99.3% of the valid votes. Turnout at 583 out of 620 registered voters was 94%. This polling station was in Bondo constituency which had the following results:

Raila 54,405

Uhuru 147

Others 295

Spoiled 339

Total votes 55,186

In this constituency, Raila got 98.6% of the total votes and 99.2% of the valid votes. Turnout was 93%. Bondo constituency is part of Siaya county which had the following results:

Raila 284,031

Uhuru 884

Others 1,797

Spoiled 1,735

Total votes 288,447

In this county, Raila got 98.5% of the total votes and 99.1% of the valid votes. Turnout was 93%.

In Uhuru strongholds, the same phenomenon occurs with the opposite results. Let us take Nyeri county which had the following results:

Uhuru 318,880

Raila 5,638

Others 4,041

Spoiled 2,465

Total votes 331,024

In this county, Uhuru got 96.3% of the total votes and 97.1% of the valid votes. Turnout was 93%.

Isn’t this hard to believe? How could this happen? I have some insights on this. The method is the use of subtle to overt intimidation. It starts with tribal chauvinism claiming that it is essential that “one of our own” become president. When Uhuru Kenyatta began his political party, The National Alliance, he promoted this concept with the corollary that all Kikuyu should unite behind the frontrunner, himself. With this he attempted to push all the other Kikuyu candidates out of the race and was taken to task for this, but while three other Kikuyu candidates remained in the race, they received an insignificant number of votes in this election.

If a voter does not join the bandwagon, he or she is considered a traitor to the tribe. After the 2007 election, fifty prominent Kikuyu, mostly human rights activists who questioned Kibaki’s election, were branded publicly as “traitors to the Kikuyu tribe.” In 2008 when I was touring the US speaking on the post election violence, I met the brother of a Kikuyu politician who was supporting Raila. He told me that he was frequently considered a Kikuyu traitor and I think he felt that he was in physical danger. I read a comment in the newspaper that a Luo who was supporting Uhuru could not come to Kisumu (Raila’s stronghold) without a helmet on to keep him from being hurt by rocks thrown at him.

A citizen reporter reported this: In the stronghold of a particular candidate for Member of Parliament, if anyone was heard talking against him or positively about any of the other candidates, he or she was visited at night by the candidate’s agents who straightforwardly told him or her to support the candidate. This candidate won his election.

Most Kenyan voters do not think their vote is secret. In fact, they are correct. Two Sundays before the election, the IEBC had a mock demonstration to see how voting would occur and allow voters to participate. I went to the Lumakanda Primary School voting station and found that voting booths were positioned in such a way that the backs of the voters were towards the room. I commented that this was incorrect as the voting booth should be turned around so that the voter’s back was facing the wall. The Presiding Officer said that this is the way they were told to do it. On voting day I walked into a polling stream at the school and found party agents standing right behind the voters watching the voters filling out their ballots. Even when this was not the case, others waiting in line to vote could peak at a voter’s selections.

Agents frequently tell voters — even if this is not true — that they know how each person votes. Voters in non-stronghold areas sometimes asked our election observers who they should vote for. Agents were also asked. In stronghold areas, the Presiding Officer and the clerks will all be on the side of the favorite candidate. Our election observers have seen cases were the polling clerks advised some voters on how they should fill out their ballots.

The Kamba and Kalenjin – two of the other of the five major tribes — strongholds are not quite as efficient as they are in Kikuyu and Luo strongholds. In the case of the Kalenjins, this is due to the fact that they are not a “tribe” itself, but a grouping of similar tribes in the Rift Valley province. This allows for part of the Kalenjin vote to be won by other candidates. Putting it another way, the preferred candidate cannot assume that he or she is going to get 95+% of the vote. William Ruto’s, Uhuru’s running mate, home constituency of Turbo is a good example. The Uhuru/Ruto ticket received only 61.9% of the vote with 84% turnout and a 91.6% registration rate.

This brings us to the Luhya, the second to largest tribe in Kenya, who have been unable to promote a preferred candidate. Musalia Mudavadi attempted this during this election and failed miserably, getting only 3.9% of the votes even though the Luhya are 14% of the population. The outsider, Raila, actually outpolled him significantly in Luhya areas. The reason for this is that the Luhya are really sixteen or so related Bantu-speaking sub-tribes, but full of a lot of competition amongst them. Under the present arrangement, Kenya is never going to have a Luhya president.

Clearly to deal with irregularities and fraud, the number of election observers must be increased ten-fold from the roughly 12,000 observers this election. More importantly they must begin before the enrollment of voters. They need to observe the voter registration, party nominations, the campaign period, the voting in the voting stations, the tallying of the votes, and the post election period. This is a gigantic undertaking and can only be done by Kenyan citizens who consider this their civic responsibility. Perhaps in the next election we can pioneer this in a few constituencies.

Election Bribery

Posted on March 27, 2013 by David

Report from Kenya #224 – March 26, 2013

When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders.The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba.But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. First Samuel 8:1-3

With 1200 trained citizen reporters who began watching the Kenyan elections even before the enrollment of voters last November, plus 265 election observers, frequently from remote areas of western Kenyan, the AGLI/FCPT Call-in Center has a grassroots perspective that other observing organizations do not have. Consequently other observers have missed one of the major attributes of Kenyan elections – bribery. This report analyzes the information we have collected on this issue.

Weekly, on Thursday mornings, the United Society of Friends Women (USFW) of Lumakanda Friends Church meets at the church. On April 29, the Thursday before the election, one of the presidential candidates was visiting Lumakanda. All the candidates for the other positions were in town also because political candidates love crowds. Two or three times the usual USFW women were present, plus some other women who were not even members of the church, but there was no meeting. The women were there to collect bribes from the various candidates. I was told that one woman member of the meeting was given 100,000 shillings ($1176) to hand out as bribes. Since a bribe has to be a note and the smallest note is 50 shillings (59 cents), this woman had funds for 2000 bribes. Of course, no one knows how much she gave out and how much she kept for herself.

During the month before the election, AGLI/FCPT conducted eight Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities workshops on Mt Elgon. The facilitators reported “disturbances” because every time a candidate came by, all the participants would run out of the workshop to get their bribes. A Quaker peace maker posted this on Facebook on March 1, three days before the election: “They do not think about bribes. They know aspirants are VERY RICH people. All they want is a little of the millions they have so they can go buy their chang’a [potent local brew] or a quarter kilo [half pound] of sugar. So they come running with their hands out-stretched, ‘Give us. If you just pass shauri yako [your business]. We shall not vote for you…’ Teachers are lying in Kakamega hospital with broken limbs because they were fighting over money given by a politician. So are teachers poor? Lord have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon us.”

On the day of the party nominations, the Call-in Center received this message from a citizen reporter in Ilolomani constituency: “Many homes are deserted as roads are lined up with people waiting for handouts from various aspirants, regardless of party. The talk is ‘It’s eating time.’ Money is being dished out and normal work in shambas [fields] halted.” Don’t think this is an overstatement. The March 24, Sunday Nation included an article (page 8) titled “Back to the Farms, State Urges Farmers.” The opening sentence reads, “The country’s future food supply remains uncertain after farmers neglected their farms and focused on campaigns in the recently concluded General Election.” It reports that only 40% of the farm land had been prepared for planting versus the normal 80% with the planting for the long rains now beginning.

I was told this story by teachers in Lugari District. A candidate for county-wide office gave 1.5 million shillings ($17,647) to the local district teachers’ union to be divided among the 3,000 teachers at 500 shillings ($5.88) each. They were to go to a local hotel and receive their bribe. When they got there, they found that the union officials had “eaten” (ie, stolen) the money and there was nothing for the teachers. They became angry and began breaking windows. In the end they got nothing and had to walk home. The candidate vowed that he would get his money back from the union officials, but I have no idea how he could go about doing this. The story sounded amazing, but I know the owner of the hotel and I decided to visit the hotel to ask her. She admitted that the teachers had come to her hotel, a “scuffle” had occurred, and she showed me the four panes of glass that had been broken. She did not know the amounts that were involved, but she was compensated appropriately.

On election day, the bribery did not stop. Eight percent of our election observers reported bribing beginning right in the polling station – it is so common, so accepted that people hardly bother to hide it. Here is a typical comment: “One URP [one of the political parties] agent was in the center and a young boy came to call him. Then I watched as he went out to meet three women. He put his hand in the pocket and I signaled the police. Police is taking care of it now.” Clearly our election observers would have missed much of the bribery, particularly what was going on outside of the polling station. One election observer told me that his wife saw one of the candidates at the polling station who told her that, after she voted, she should go to her shop and get a half pound of sugar and 50 shillings. This she did. But reporting the bribery has its dangers as this message from a citizen reporter during the party nominations: “One parliamentary aspirant realized that I saw him giving people money which led to a big confrontation. His allies have been calling me to check if I had taken the matter to IEBC!!”

A few months ago I was surprised to hear President Mwai Kibaki on TV state that one can accept bribes but then vote for the best candidate. Joe Ossmann, my colleague, then looked up the laws concerning election bribery and found that this was correct. While it is against the law to give an election bribe, it is not illegal to accept the bribe as long as it does not influence the receiver’s vote. Clearly no one could ever be successfully prosecuted for accepting a bribe since all one has to say is that “I didn’t vote for that candidate” or “I was already planning to vote for that candidate.”

Let me state that I know a number of Kenyan voters who are as appalled as I am by this election bribery and will not accept any of these bribes.

In the United States, it is the other way around as the candidates beg money from the voters claiming that they will implement the desires of the voters. The corruption in the US is that those with lots of money – individuals, businesses, or lobbying organizations – make the election donations with the tacit understanding that the candidate, when in office, will vote for legislation that will benefit the donors. In effect, this is only a different kind of election corruption as both usurp the democratic process.

Let us do a little arithmetic. If every one of the 14.3 million voters received 1000 shillings ($11.76) in bribes (including the amounts that the bribing agents kept for themselves for their “services”), this would amount to 14.3 billion shillings ($168.2 million). Since the GNP of Kenya is $34.8 billion, this would amount to .48% of the annual GNP, but since this is mostly given out during the two months of campaigning, it would be 2.90% of the total GNP for those two months just for bribing voters. Next time Kenya has a famine, for example, and is looking for international support for relief food, remember this.

There are numerous downsides to this election bribery. First it is not fair and, if it occurs on a massive scale as currently happens, there cannot be a “fair” election. Any candidate without considerable resources cannot be elected because people will not vote for a candidate who has not given out bribes. As a result no reform candidate can win – it is disappointing to see how few votes the five reform presidential candidates received in this election — collective only 1.8% of the vote. Moreover it is detrimental to women candidates who do not have the vast resources that men have. No women won for president, governor, or senator and only 17 women out of 290 (5.9%) won against men for member of parliament.

When politicians have to expend so much money in order to be elected, they feel that they are entitled to reimbursement. This is one of the reasons that they demand high salaries and benefits. But the bribery money must come up front. One minister let the cat out of the bag when he was commenting on one of the massive government frauds, the Anglo-Leasing scandals – he noted that these funds were needed for the 2002 election campaign.

The real issue, though, is psychology. If candidates have bribed voters to become elected, they feel that they have bought their position and owe nothing more to their constituents – usually they are not seen much again until just before the next election. Likewise the voters, having received their bribes, have no expectations that the politicians will be looking out for their benefit. In short the premise of democracy, that people will elect those who will represent them, is broken.

Extensive election bribery as I have outlined in this report cannot lead to a free and fair election.

Democracy Tourism and The Media

Posted on March 22, 2013 by David

Report from Kenya #223 – March 22, 2013

“Democracy tourism” is a term I saw used by a columnist in the Daily Nation. It refers to all the international media people and election observers who come to Kenya for the election, getting a nice Kenyan vacation paid for by their employer. Eden Grace, the treasurer of the Friends Church Peace Teams/African Great Lakes Initiative, which had applied to be an official election observing organization, reported the following on a conference call: “I got confirmation that our IEBC observation registration went through a few days ago, as I got a call from the Norfolk Hotel asking if we’d like their hospitality services for our incoming observers.” The hotel’s website states, “The Norfolk Hotel has played a leading role in Kenya’s colorful history, and continues to be Nairobi’s finest and best-known luxury hotel.” Their rate basic rate is $259 per night for a room. I do wonder, though, how the Norfolk Hotel got Eden’s phone number since it had to come from someone connected with our IEBC application for election observers.

There is no doubt that many of the foreign election observers are “wined and dined” in great style and ushered around the country to be shown only what the Kenyan establishment wants them to see. It is no wonder that these observers give a thumbs-up to even an atrocious election. The view from the grassroots, as we see from our citizen reporters and election observers, is vastly different as I have indicated in other reports.

*****

The foreign media has been attacked by some Kenyans because all they wanted to do was to record fire and destruction as happened after the December 2007 election. Because there has been no post-election violence (yet), they are disappointed as they have nothing to write about since a peaceful election is not “news.” Note that attacking the international media, when they report something negative in Kenya, is a common reaction, thereby glossing over the issue that perhaps needs to be investigated.

I try to read all the election related reports in English by the international media and I have to admit that some of them are terrible, frequently filled with false facts and statements. But on the other hand sometimes I learn something that was not reported in the Kenyan media. This brings us to the role of the Kenyan media.

Without doubt during the 2008 post-election violence, the Kenyan media helped perpetuate the violence by luridly repeating their most violent scenes over and over on TV. This time the Kenyan media, in cooperative agreement, decided to “preach peace” while downplaying or ignoring any situations that might raise tension and cause violence. For example, FCPT/AGLI dealt extensively with the eight deaths on Mt. Elgon. I never saw anything about this in the paper. They couldn’t have just missed it because a contact I had in the Daily Nation asked if she could forward one of my postings about it to their reporter in Eldoret who covers Mt. Elgon. Likewise when I woke up on election morning, I received a message from our Call-in Center that an MP candidate’s vehicle was torched in Kakamega County. This was not reported by the media until a police spokesman mentioned it in his election day briefing.

This reminded me of 1992 and 1997 when there was considerable election violence in the Rift Valley. Some people here in Lumakanda say that the violence in 1992 and 1997 was worse than that of 2008. But in 1992 and 1997, cell phones and internet were rare. The Moi government then closed that part of the Rift Valley experiencing violence to all media, both local and international. As a result, to this day, it is not clear what happened during these prior times of inter-ethnic violence. Now the Kenyan media is essentially doing the same thing on their own volition. There must be a caveat about post-election violence after the March 4 election: “There is no reported post-election violence.” So what is the correct middle stance between reporting the news and not inciting violence?

Yet there is a new phenomenon that has developed since 2008 – the social media. Kenyans have taken in the past two or three years to social media as fish do to water. There is great concern that the social media could be used negatively to influence, spark, and organize violence. Consequently the social media networks have agreed to block hate speech. The newspaper reported yesterday that these networks are blocking 300,000 hate messages per day! I am certain that hundreds of thousands more hate messages are getting through. I myself don’t visit these sites but I understand that the messages are inflammatory and abusive. The violence that occurred on the streets in 2008 is now occurring in the social media. While this might be considered an improvement, this does underline the tensions that are building up in the country and the real possibility that violence can erupt at any time. Commentaries say that last time it was the youth riff-raff that caused the violence, but this time it is the media savvy, better educated youth who are doing this. My opinion is that these are exactly the same people five years later.

Did So! Did Not!

Posted on March 21, 2013 by David

The petitions and responses are flying, and the tone is somewhat reminiscent of playground chants of accusation and denial. The stakes, however, are much higher. Immediately hanging in the balance is the Presidency of Kenya. Lurking just around the corner is the specter of violent confrontation in the streets and countryside of this fragile and too-recently traumatized country.

It started last Saturday when Raila Odinga and his CORD coalition filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Kenya saying that the March 4 Presidential election was fatally flawed. In summary, Raila said that:

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) abrogated its constitutional and statutory duties in many ways.
The widespread breakdown of the biometric voter identification system left many if not most polling places dependent on printed voter registers, a system which had been widely discredited in the 2007 election. The procurement process for the biometric system was fatally flawed.
The system that was set up to electronically transmit results directly from polling stations to the national tallying center completely failed. This left a gaping hole in the designed process for redundancies in the security of election results, thus leaving room for manipulation of tallies.
In a number of specific locations the number of votes cast exceeded the number of registered voters.
Multiple and different official results transmission forms exist from the same locations.
Some of the numbers sent to the national tallying center differ from the numbers from individual polling stations.
Some final published vote counts differ from the counts that were verbally announced at the national tallying center.
CORD agents were ejected from some tallying stations, including national headquarters.
There are numerous allegations of specific polling station irregularities.
Some vote totals were clearly altered.
The official register of voters unlawfully changed in number prior to the election.

The CORD petition attached a number of affidavits attesting to the various allegations.

Replies to the CORD petition have now been filed by three of the four respondents – IEBC Chairman Issack Hassan, winning Presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta, and winning Deputy Presidential candidate William Ruto. Still to be heard from is the IEBC itself. Among the statements in defense are (paraphrasing a bit):

The court must use three tests in considering CORD’s petition:
- Public interest
- Proportionality
- Harm

In other words, OK, maybe mistakes were made, but they’re not worth killing the baby for. Also:

Raila has never accepted the results of any election that he lost. He is a sore loser who is trying to nullify the will of the people.
CORD’s petition does not prove any constitutional or statutory violations.
Raila didn’t complain about the registration while it was going on.
Raila was Prime Minister when the biometric system was procured, so it happened on his watch. He can’t reject the procurement process when he oversaw it.
Raila is cleverly conflating his private rights and the rights of the public.
CORD’s agents were only ejected from the national tallying center when they became disruptive.
There is no evidence that there was any conspiracy to sabotage the electronic systems.
Raila is basing his case on theories and allegations, not facts. The court cannot throw out an election based on a theory.

Until the Supreme Court decides the case, everyone is holding their breath about the possibility of violence. No matter what the court decides, a big chunk of the people in Kenya will be very unhappy. The country’s top internal security officer has asked CORD to suspend all rallies until the case is decided, and Raila has agreed. So far the country has been congratulating itself on keeping the peace. However, some playground disputes end with fisticuffs. When the court hands down its decision, can Kenyans continue to play nicely together?

–Joe Ossmann

Election Observing and Civic Responsibility

Posted on March 19, 2013 by David

I observed the 2007 Kenyan election, the 2010 Kenyan constitutional referendum, and now the 2013 Kenyan election. I have some firm ideas, which I outline in this posting, on how this should be done if Kenya is going to have free, fair elections.

I was upset after the Kenyan referendum when I realized that each election observer was given allowances of 3,000 shillings (then about $37.50) when the basic wage was about $1 per day. I felt somewhat responsible since AGLI had contributed to the pot that supported these election observers. I was further incensed when I learned that one of the election observes was also an agent for the “No” vote, meaning he was not only not neutral but receiving allowances from two sources – double dipping as it is called in the language of corruption. I then questioned why citizens should be paid for observing their own elections. Where was the civic responsibility to ensure free and fair elections? I doubted that the international NGO community would ever be able to come up with sufficient funding to ensure an adequate number of election observers.

Much like AGLI’s refusal to pay sitting allowances of any kind for people attending our workshops, I decided that election observers needed to totally volunteer with no allowances whatsoever. This is how I envisioned it should be done.

Observers should be posted at their own polling station so that there would be no need for a transport allowance. This had the added benefit that then the election observer would be able to vote. During the referendum we realized that when we did not post election observers at their own polling station, they lost their right to vote.
Since election observers were in their home community, they could be brought tea, lunch, and other food by family members as Gladys did for me when I observed the 2007 election at the Lumakanda Primary School.
The observing day is extremely long. In 2007 I started at 5:00 AM and ended at 11:00 PM for an eighteen hour day. In the 2013 election which had six rather than three ballots to count, Kathy Ossmann at the same polling station got home after 3:00 AM. Some of our election observers reported getting home at 6:00 AM after more than 24 hours on duty. I thought that two election observers per polling station would be better – one needs to be especially awake at the tallying of votes at the end of the day. So I proposed that person A observe from 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM, person B from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, then person A from 3:00 PM until the end of the voting around 6:00 to 7:00 PM, and then person B from the beginning to the end of the tallying. This would make the day much more manageable for the volunteer election observers. While we did have a number of polling streams and stations with two observers, we hadn’t conveyed the system clearly enough for it to be effective. But it did work well for Joe and Kathy Ossmann.

We did find that there was a substantial advantage that I had not thought about by having observers at their own polling station. Unlike outside and international observers, they knew the people, the candidates, and even some of the election officials and agents. This made them aware of certain things, particularly bribery and electioneering, that other observers would have missed. We also found that the local observers had a much higher stake in seeing that the voting for all the positions from their lowest to the highest was done fairly. It seems that some of the election observer organizations were only concentrating on the presidential election.

Another aspect of the model was to have our citizen reporters, whom we called “community observers,” to observe and report to our Call-in Center on activities outside the polling station. When an election observer with cap, t-shirt, and badge walks around outside the polling station, an illegal activity will stop immediately until the observer passes on. We trained 1200 of these community observers and received this report from one area, “Our community observers helped by watching the area outside the polling station.”

I first proposed this model in December 2011 at the Lugari Yearly Meeting’s Quakermen annual meeting. This model was attacked. The first person to ask a question commented that this was not the Kenyan custom and that, if there was no allowance, Kenyans would not volunteer. The word “volunteer,” I have learned, in Kenya means that one is paid something that is less than the going wage, but still with some payment. I was later told that even people who didn’t complain expected that the Mzungu, the white person with lots of money, would nonetheless give these allowances. I went home terribly discouraged, but I vowed that even if AGLI got only twenty people who were willing to truly volunteer, we would proceed with those few. When I brought this concept up in front of the Friends Church Peace Team’s board, I received the same negative reaction. Kenyans have to be paid. Yet since I have had years of experience declining to give allowances to those attending AGLI sponsored workshops, I have no problem saying “No.”

In the end, FCPT/AGLI enrolled 265 election observers. Some of them did not receive their badges from the IEBC, others had the name and contact information wrong, and at least one observer was not allowed to observe by the Presiding Officer. Kathy Ossmann will be making a final report on her analysis of the election observers who returned their election observing forms. Nonetheless from those we have already received we can see the following:

Misconduct of Presiding Officers (PO) and election clerks: Let people vote without identity cards, issuing two ballots to same voter, not stamping back of ballot (thus making them spoiled), badge missing, 88 voters registered elsewhere allowed to vote, and PO sleeping. One of our observers commented, “The PO in the polling station I observed was incompetent and needed more training. Our observers helped the POs.”
Misconduct of party agents: Bribing of voters, campaigning in polling station, interacting with voters, and crowding around voting booth as voters marked ballots.

If these incidences of misconduct were observed in voting stations where we had observers, what was happened in most of the polling stations in the country which did not have observers? One of our lead observers commented, “The presence of our observers in polling stations made a difference which I could see when I visited several different stations. The unobserved stations tended to be very unorganized.” When I myself walked into one of the three voting streams at Lumakanda Primary School and our observer was standing in line to vote, I saw that all the party agents were crowded around the voting booths, watching the voter mark his/her ballot. The Presiding Clerk was right there and saying nothing about this illegal activity. When the agents saw me looking at them, they moved back to the agents’ desks but did not sit down. I asked Kathy who was observing in the stream next door to come in and watch until our observer returned.

In the strongholds of the two major candidates, the preferred candidate often received 99% of the votes. I do not mean just in a polling station, but in a whole constituency of 25,000 to over 100,000 voters. How can this possibly happen without intimidation, bribery, voting official misconduct, and fraud?

It is clear to me that in order to have a free and fair election, there needs to be two election observers for each voting stream. There were about 33,000 polling stations and, while the IEBC never gave the total number of streams, it must be in the neighborhood of 60,000. Therefore there is a need in the country for 120,000 election observers.

We had complaints from some of our observers in one area. ELOG (Election Observers Group) had 7,000 observers for the election. Our observers were in the same polling station with them and found that they were being paid 6500 shillings ($76.47) for their election observing, while our observers were getting nothing. If there were 120,000 observers at this rate, there would be a need for $9,176,400 just to pay for the allowances. Kenya will wait for eternity for NGOs to come up with this amount of funding for election observer allowances.

The alternative is for Kenyans to grasp their civic responsibility themselves. If they want free and fair, violence-free elections they are going to have to step up themselves. This model I have proposed can work and cut down on bribery, fraud, and election malpractice to ensure freer, fairer elections.

Twelve Days In

Posted on March 16, 2013 by David

It’s been 12 days since the election and a week since the results were announced, and things in Kenya are proceeding like the country has multiple personality disorder. On the one hand, President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta has been barreling forward toward his date with destiny when he will be sworn in. He has met with the outgoing President, he has had an official security briefing, and he is negotiating with minor parties toward putting together a parliamentary coalition.

On the other hand, Uhuru’s main challenger, Raila Odinga, is today filing a petition with the Supreme Court, arguing that the conduct and the results of the election were fatally flawed. He claims that he can show that he actually received a majority of the votes cast. That would be a pretty major shift, since his official numbers came in at 43 percent. Raila has asked his supporters to wear white t-shirts saying “I Support the Petition” or white arm bands and to pray for peace until the court renders a decision. The Constitution says that the court has two weeks to do so. At the same time, numerous other petitions are being filed by candidates in down-ticket races around the country who claim they were similarly wronged.

Then there is the media, which has on its own been evidencing a split personality. (Perhaps that is actually a healthy sign for the media.) They started out last weekend absolutely gushing over the new President elect, telling his life story, showing baby pictures, etc. They have been breathlessly paving his way to the State House with palm branches. At the same time they have been giving increasing coverage to Raila’s claims, and also periodically mentioning a growing number of puzzling and disturbing anomalies about the conduct and results of the election.

Then today the Nation, Kenya’s largest newspaper, is running a double-page, hard-hitting story which details a number of things the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has to answer for. Here are the high points:

The failure of the biometric voter identification system means that there were few safeguards in place to ensure that people didn’t vote twice. Even in places where the biometric system did function, each local computer used a self-contained data base of the entire national registration list, so a voter could vote at one polling place, then go to another one (and another and another) and vote some more.
Identical copies of the same paper register existed in more than one polling place. So in places where the biometric system failed, voters could have had their names crossed off the paper register in one polling place, then gone next door and repeated the process.
The highly touted system to electronically transmit results from every polling station to election headquarters failed spectacularly. Why? And what happened to the data that was transmitted before the system failed? It could at least be used as a check on the parallel paper results.
The IEBC has not made public the results for every polling station. The lowest level of results they have published is the constituency (Parliamentary district). This means that it is impossible to detect polling stations where the number of votes may have exceeded the number of registered voters.
The number of Presidential ballots cast is suspiciously greater than the number of Parliamentary ballots. In the balloting system used, in which each voter was issued a separate paper ballot for each of the six offices, the final number of ballots cast in each race should have been very close.
In the gradual announcements of the tally of Presidential votes as election week wore on, the gap between Uhuru and Raila remained eerily consistent. Given that the results of the reporting constituencies were widely varying, why did the gap not fluctuate significantly?
The official turnout on election day was about 86 percent of the registered voters. Initially that was touted as a wonderful sign of the enthusiasm of Kenyan voters. It has been said that it is one of the highest turnouts of any election anywhere. As the days have worn on, however, doubts are surfacing. Given that in most places voters were waiting for many hours in the hot sun, and many people must have given up and left, how realistic are those numbers?
There were four basic announced numbers that should have tied together: the total votes cast, the number of rejected votes, the number of valid votes, and the sum of the individual candidates’ votes. In the IEBC’s posted results as the tallying went on, these numbers were consistently visible. However, they never showed a consistent mathematical relationship. The error varied between two and 7,416. Was this just sloppiness or a sign of active fudging at work?
Why, despite repeated assurances by the IEBC, was an authoritative version of the voter register never uploaded onto their website? Given that such an authoritative register was never published, what was used to conduct the elections?

In another article, today’s Nation reveals that “Presidential results published…yesterday have similar figures for candidates in several constituencies across the country.” In Kitui County, for example, six of the eight presidential candidates have the same results in each of two constituencies. The IEBC has since corrected the figures in Kitui, but similar anomalies remain in several other locations.

As can be seen, these points add up to a staggering lack of faith in the election results. This would be highly worrisome in any election. It is particularly disappointing at this time and place because the IEBC was instituted and its procedures put in place expressly in order to avoid these types of problems and ensure the integrity of the election. In the weeks and months leading up to the election there was a steady drumbeat of confidence in the IEBC and its systems. As more and more revelations come forward, that drumbeat has disintegrated into cacophonous chaos.

So now two things remain to be seen: 1) how will the courts rule on the many petitions that are before it, and 2) will the IEBC come up with any reasonable and credible explanations for its clear failures?

The Constitution says that if it grants a petition by a losing Presidential candidate, it can mandate another election within 60 days. It may decide that there are alternative remedies available to it as well. The bottom line at this point is that there is a new deadline looming for Kenya that has the potential to provoke civil unrest. The Supreme Court must deliver its verdict not later than March 30. The lead-up to Easter will be foreboding this year.

–Joe Ossmann

The Nairobi Governor

Posted on March 12, 2013 by David

Report from Kenya #219 – March 11, 2013

The presidential election in Kenya was not the only election of importance that took place on March 4. The new Kenyan constitution passed in 2010 mandated “devolution” into 47 counties. Each county will be led by a governor who will be an executive. The smallest, most populated county which accounts for over 50% of the national income is Nairobi county. I think that the governor of Nairobi county will be the second most powerful person in Kenya after the president. The election of the Nairobi governor is an interesting story.

There were two main candidates, Luo Evans Kidero, running on the ODM (Raila’s party) ticket and Kikuyu Ferdinand Waititu, running on the TNA (Uhuru’s party) ticket. They couldn’t be more different.

Kidero, 56, was born in a slum in Nairobi, but did well in school and became a businessman. He was CEO for two years of the Nation Group, the largest media conglomerate in East Africa, and then CEO for ten years of Mumias Sugar Company, the only profitable, forward looking sugar company in Kenya – it is the only one that uses sugar biomass to produce electricity for the plant and the national grid. He has become wealthy; after his first wife died, in 2011 he married Susan Mboya, the daughter of Tom Mboya (one of the brightest Kenyan politicians, assassinated in 1969) in a lavish wedding party.

Waititu, on the other hand, was known for his scrapes with the law even as an MP representing a constituency in Nairobi. A good example of his style occurred last September, when two Maasai guards killed a street boy for stealing a chicken in his constituency, he exclaimed to a crowd, “We don’t want to see any Maasai here in Kayole. And to all people who employed Maasai, to sack them with immediate effect.” Hate speech is usually in code, but this wasn’t even code. Two or three innocent Maasai were then killed by those incited by Waititu. He was charged for this offence, but apologized. He should have been disbarred from public office for this, but with the usual impunity in Kenya he was allowed to vie for the Nairobi mayor seat.

The chattering class in Nairobi (not only the old media but also the social media) commented after a TV interview that Kidero was aloof, condescending, and intellectual, while Waititu spoke to the common slum dwellers, the riff-raff of Nairobi – I am sure you noticed the class distinctions in all this. They complained that the middle class Nairobians were too lazy to stand in the hot sun to vote so that the lower classes, who had nothing better to do, would vote in their candidate.

What was the result? Kidero got 692,483 votes while Waititu got 617,839 votes for a 74,644 vote victory for Kidero. Is this a nice morality tale?

The problem is that it is not. The world in convoluted. The vote was almost totally based, as the rest of Kenyan voting, on tribal lines. Kidero had the Luo and Luhya vote along with the Kamba and definitely the small Maasai vote. Waititu depended upon the Kikuyu and Kalenjin vote. Perhaps some of smaller tribes tipped the balance toward Kidero. Raila received 691,156 votes in Nairobi which is only 1327 (0.2%) votes less than Kidero received. On the other side, Wititu got 41,651 (6.3%) votes less than Uhuru. On the whole people who voted for Raila also voted for Kidero and those who voted for Uhuru voted for Wititu.

ODM also secured the governorship of Kisumu county, including Kenya’s third largest city, with the election of Jack Ranguma, aged 57. He again is a prominent businessman who specializes in “reviving collapsing organizations” and tax fraud issues. He is hardly a political hack Again ODM captured the Mombasa county governorship, including Kenyan’s second largest city. The winner is Joho Hassan, 37, who specializes in business management – he started the first garbage pick-up firm in Mombasa. Kakamega county, with the sixth largest city in Kenya, was won by ODM candidate, Wycliffe Oparanya, 48, who was formerly the Minister for Planning after serving twenty-two years in accountancy, audit and business consultancy.

These governors are a different breed from the politicians who have governed Kenya for the last 50 years for the benefit of themselves, family, supporters, clan, and tribe. If a businessman did what Kenyan politicians have been doing, the business would quickly become bankrupt. These governors on the other hand have led successful businesses and have acquired managerial skills that should make the government efficient and effective.

This is the hope for Kenya’s revival. Of course, these governors of large counties need to perform and accomplish the turn-about that they promise. If they can do this, they will bring a new era of prosperity to all Kenyans living in their counties.

Uhuru Kenyatta Declared President-Elect

Posted on March 9, 2013 by David

Report from Kenya #218 – March 9, 2013

At 2:47 PM today, Uhuru Kenyatta was declared the 4^th president-elect of Kenya by the Chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). It was a close, but not close contest. Uhuru obtained 6,173,433 votes for 50.06% of the votes cast. Raila Odinga received 5,340,548 votes for 43% so it was not close. But the winning candidate must obtain 50% plus 1 vote in order to win. As you can see from above, Uhuru only got 0.06% or 8418 more votes than he needed for the absolute majority. Otherwise there would have been a run-off election. Raila Odinga has already indicated that he is going to challenge these results in court.

So far our citizen reporters have reported tension in the Raila stronghold areas, but have not reported any unrest or violence. One message reports, “Siaya County [Raila’s home] is so calm and have received and accepted the final presidential results. Residents are happy for the sake of peace, for economic growth. They say, ‘Uhuru is Kenya’s 4^th President.’” While the situation looks fine at the moment, I would want to wait a few more days (and particularly nights) before I give a final assessment on the peacefulness of the election.

Most impressive was the fact that 86% of the registered voters cast their ballots on Monday. Many had to wait long hours in the hot sun – one person in the paper complained of waiting from 6:00 AM until 5:00 PM. One woman died while waiting in line and another gave birth. This, unfortunately, is the fault of the electoral commission as they didn’t have sufficient planning.

The electronic biometric voter registration devices did not work well and were one reason for the delays. The cell phone system to send in provisional votes to Nairobi had an inordinate number of spoiled ballots reported. After two days, the clearly agitated IEBC Chairman, Issack Hassan, had to concede that the cell phone system had failed. There was a bug in the system that multiplied the spoiled ballots by eight. As he indicated, though, the official returns were the legal documents, not the cell phone results, that each polling center had to turn in. So the counting started over, but really, except for the spoiled ballots, not particularly divergent from the paper returns.

Some people, particularly the business community, have complained that the elections wasted a whole week from Monday’s voting until Saturday’s announcement. There is a campaign to get Kenya back to work again.

Frankly I myself am relieved. After months of organizing the citizen reporters, election observers, civic and voter education, and responding to violence on Mt Elgon, I did not look forward to another month of doing the same for a run-off election which would have had the potential for violence. Many Kenyans feel the same. I am sure that the people in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and eastern Congo are relieved that their transportation networks from Mombasa are not going to be disrupted.

In the next few days and weeks I will be writing reports on specific issues. The ones I have planned so far are (a) the Nairobi governor, (b) bribery, (c) democracy tourism, and (d) election observing as a civic responsibility.

Kenyan Elections 2013

Peaceful Prevention and Community Reporting Project