Kenya’s re-run election
Kenyan voters went to the polls yesterday for the second time in three months to elect a president after the Supreme Court overturned the August election victory of President Uhuru Kenyatta, citing irregularities. Nineteen million people were eligible to vote but given all the problems that trailed the election, reports were that turnout was much […]
Kenyan voters went to the polls yesterday for the second time in three months to elect a president after the Supreme Court overturned the August election victory of President Uhuru Kenyatta, citing irregularities. Nineteen million people were eligible to vote but given all the problems that trailed the election, reports were that turnout was much lower than was the case last August. At least three people were killed as violence broke out in parts of the country, with supporters of the opposition National Super Alliance party of Mr. Raila Odinga trying to disrupt the polls. In western Kenya around the town of Kisumu, stronghold of the opposition, police clashed with protesters, fired tear gas and in some cases live bullets.
Odinga and his supporters made a last ditch effort on Wednesday to stop yesterday’s election by asking the Supreme Court to delay it. However, the court failed to seat when only Chief Justice David Maraga and two other justices turned up for the sitting, short of the minimum five required to form a quorum. Raila Odinga then urged his supporters to boycott the rerun election, leaving President Kenyatta to run against five small party candidates. The country’s election commission itself was divided and in turmoil, with its boss saying he could not guarantee a free and fair outcome.
It is a constitutional requirement that a re-run must be held before 1 November after the Supreme Court nullified the first election held on August 8. While the first election passed off fairly peacefully, about 70 people have been killed in violence since IEBC declared President Uhuru Kenyatta the winner of that election. A flurry of court challenges to the election procedure, resignation of an electoral commissioner and threat of a controversial new electoral bill being signed into law all added to the anxiety before yesterday’s elections. Even though over 100,000 security officers were deployed to voting centres, many out of Kenya’s 48 million people left the capital, Nairobi as the polls approached due to fear of violence of the type that occurred in 2007, when more than 1,000 were killed and 600,000 were displaced.
The contest for Kenya’s presidency has been very hot this year partly because it pitches two of the country’s most famous political families against each other. Uhuru Kenyatta, 55, who leads the Jubilee Party, is the son of Kenya’s first president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. His rival Raila Odinga, 72, candidate of the National Super Alliance, is the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s first vice president and one time ally turned bitter rival of Jomo Kenyatta. The two men had contested against each other in 2013 and Kenyatta is seeking his second and final term. Ethnicity has been a major factor in Kenyan elections. The country is home to more than 40 tribes, the five largest ethnic groups being Kikuyu, Luhya, Kalenjin, Luo and Kamba. Kenyatta is Kikuyu while Odinga is Luo.
Given this ethnic colouration of Kenyan national politics, Kenyatta’s victory last August was seen across Africa as inevitable since the Kikuyu are the country’s largest group, and there was some sadness that the Supreme Court annulled the poll on technical grounds. Such an outcome only served to heighten tensions and make the possibility of violence even more real with very little chance of a different outcome in the election results. It was not surprising that even though Odinga got the court to quash the election, he began making new demands before he will agree to participate in the rerun election. In particular he wanted to sack the election commissioners and change some of the commission’s rules. When that failed, he launched a boycott. This boycott all but guaranteed victory in yesterday’s poll for Uhuru Kenyatta.
We are glad however that President Kenyatta has raised the prospect of negotiations with his opponent after the election is concluded. We urge Kenya’s political leaders to do everything in their power to prevent the kind of chaos that the world witnessed in 2007.