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Twilight robbery, daylight
murder
Jan 3rd 2008 NAIROBI
From The Economist print edition
After a stolen election, ethnic cleansing and even the threat of
civil war
THE decision to return Kenya's 76-year-old incumbent president,
Mwai Kibaki, to office was not made by the Kenyan people but by a
small group of hardline leaders from Mr Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe.
They made up their minds before the result was announced, perhaps
even before the opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, had opened up
a lead in early returns from the December 27th election. It was a
civil coup.
The planning was meticulous. All that was needed were the extra
votes to squeak past Mr Odinga in what had been among the most
closely contested elections Africa had ever seen. That was why
returns from Central Province, Mr Kibaki's fiercely loyal Kikuyu
heartland, were inexplicably held back. It was why, in some
constituencies, a large number of voters seemed mysteriously to
vote only in the presidential race and ignore the parliamentary
ballot—despite waiting hours in the blazing sun. But the real
damage was done in Nairobi, by simply crossing out the number of
votes as announced in the constituency and scribbling in a higher
number. Election monitors were turned away while the tallying went
on. Monitors from the European Union saw tens of thousands of
votes pinched in this way.
Mr Odinga's supporters were not innocent either. There were
irregularities in his home province of Nyanza. Still, it was the
meddling in Central Province that was decisive. Officially, Mr
Kibaki won 4.58m votes to Mr Odinga's 4.35m. A third candidate,
Kalonzo Musyoka, won 880,000 votes. Unofficially, Mr Odinga may
have won, albeit by a similarly narrow margin.
The tragedy for Kenya, and what threatens to rip the nation apart,
is that no one will know for sure. The EU's preliminary report on
the election was scathing. Although the parliamentary election had
gone off well, the European observers said the presidential one
had fallen short of “international standards”.
The role of the electoral commission was particularly dodgy. On
the afternoon of December 30th its head, Samuel Kivuitu, declared
Mr Kibaki president. The news went out only on KBC, the state
broadcaster. Other camera crews were led out of the building. The
security forces sealed off the city centre against the angry poor,
most of whom had voted for Mr Odinga. A few minutes later, in the
twilight, Mr Kibaki was sworn in as president at the State House.
In contrast to Mr Kibaki's first term, when the inauguration took
place in a stadium heaving with jubilant supporters, there were no
dignitaries or diplomats, just a few dozen loyalists and civil
servants. Some questioned whether in fact the whole event had been
staged earlier and pre-recorded.
The reaction to the swearing-in was immediate. Nairobi's slums
exploded in rage. The poor killed each other. Across the country
came a swelling up of tribal violence, sometimes Kikuyu against Mr
Odinga's Luo tribe, more often Luo and other tribes against Kikuyu.
Hundreds have been killed so far and 80,000 displaced. Gang rapes
and mutilations are widespread. Police have orders to shoot to
kill. There has been looting in Kisumu, riots in Mombasa and
pitched battles in Eldoret (see map). Kikuyu hiding in a church
near Eldoret were burned alive by a mob.
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Taken together, this amounts
to a pulling apart of Kenya's rich national fabric. Some 97%
of Kikuyu voted for Mr Kibaki. Everywhere else he was
trounced. Muslims, for instance, voted against Mr Kibaki by
70% or more. The Kikuyu highlands encircling the glaciers of
Mount Kenya increasingly feel like a state within a state.
The division is even more troubling when the parliamentary
vote is taken into account. Mr Kibaki lost half his cabinet,
including his vice-president, as well as a large number of
seemingly unassailable members of parliament. This
government may find it impossible to pass a budget.
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The hardliners' instincts will be
to use the security services to reverse the freedoms of Mr
Kibaki's first term - anything to avoid power slipping into Mr
Odinga's hands. But Kenyans may not stand for this. The government
pressured the country's mobile-phone operators to suspend text
messages for “security reasons”, without success. The army's
strong apolitical tradition, with staff officers drawn from
several tribes, looks to be holding.
Mr Odinga is demanding Mr Kibaki's resignation. He is calling for
a campaign of civil action, peaceable, but determined. On January
3rd thousands of opposition supporters tried to converge on the
centre of Nairobi for a protest rally but were dispersed by the
police. Later the same day Mr Kibaki said, for the first time,
that he was willing to talk to the opposition “once the nation is
calm”.
The expectations of the Luo and other tribes who consider
themselves marginalised will have to be addressed, and soon. With
38m people, half of them under 20, Kenya's economy has to create
several hundred thousand jobs this year just to stand still. But
investment will be hit by the violence, as will vital tourism
revenues.
The EU had at first been reluctant to send observers, arguing that
resources for Africa were slim and Kenya was “too stable”. During
the orderly voting, the mission did indeed look like an
extravagance. A week later the country was teetering on the brink
of civil war. A chastened Mr Kivuitu now says he is not sure Mr
Kibaki won the election. The Americans and the British have been
twisting arms, as has the African Union's head, John Kufuor.
Well-connected Kikuyu business leaders are trying to persuade Mr
Kibaki to give in and form a government of national unity. In the
meantime, Kenya burns.
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