Period 5/6: Kenya's Election

The starling recent news on the second presidential election of the year for Kenya was one for the books. After president Kenyatta's win in August putting him in his second term in office startled many. Immediately after the results of the election controversy broke out stating that the ballots were “rigged” and that there was a need for a re-election. Although I feel that the people have some reason to believe that the votes were tampered with because just days before the vote Christopher Msando the official in charge of the technology during the voting poles was found dead. Also before the election the pre-election polling voting showed Kenyatta and Odinga in a tight running, but after the death of Msando the polls showed Kenyatta at a comfortable lead. The people most definitely have a reason to be skeptical being that shortly after the death of Msando the voting changed drastically. The violence regarding this issue will not stop even after the second election, according to the BBC article the re-run of August's election was said to be unconstitutional, and 50 people have reportedly died since the finalization of Kenyatta’s August victory. I don’t know what will have to be in place for the people of Kenya to accept the victory of their new leader. There is way too much controversy over this issue, and in my opinion the only way for it to come to an end is to have an election without Odinga and Kenyatta all together. This would hopefully stop the arguing and the want to tamper with the results. Kenya’s government most definitely needs a new way of voting being that their new and so called “improved” voting system is not working out the way they might have planned. Kenya will have to go back to the paper voting and count them live on TV, or count them currently as the people turn in their votes in order to have the people’s full belief in the results. This is the only way that the thought of tampering the votes may be eliminated.

Kenya’s election, and reelection, of this year has caused nothing but conflict. The first election had been very close with Kenyatta winning by a mere 9 points to his opponent Odinga as can be seen in the guardian article. The second election had Kenyatta as the obvious winner, but less voters had turned out. The violence that occurred after the second election is not going to get any worse. From the point right after the election, the violence and confrontations will dwindle unless Odinga tells them otherwise. Odinga had dropped out of the second election, though, which makes one wonder so what is the big deal then. All the voters, even if they were voting for Kenyatta who won in both elections, had reason to be skeptical. According to the CNN article, the IEBC, the organization in charge of the voting, had no intentions of fixing the system after the accusations were made about it being unfair and compromised. After key figures disappeared or fled the country after this it appears that something is not adding up. The IEBC should have at least checked their systems, more than once, and confirmed their authenticity. From then they should have confirmed it with the public and made sure it was clear there were no issues. No matter what any citizen of Kenya says, unless there is tangible proof that the elections were rigged, Kenyatta is the new president and the citizens will need to accept that. They voted majority for him, Odinga dropped out, and that is all there is to it. Not knowing much about politics or voting, the only change that the government could possibly make is to go away from computers for the voting, and do a handwritten vote. This will cause other complications and make the time allotted for tallying the votes longer, but it is very hard to vote twice and the handwriting not be matched to the other vote.

Kenya is having a rough time right now with their government. There’s been a lot of violence and it kind of reminds me of Catalonia’s independence vote that happened a few months ago because there was so much violence. The violence is going to slow down pretty soon i believe. Odinga’s supporters will still be mad but no one can go on physically fighting forever. Protests happen, especially right after something as big as an election, but it slows and there will still be controversy but not as much violence. I kind of compare these “protests” of violence to when Trump was elected here. There were a few protest after the election, the only difference being that they weren’t really violent. But now we don’t see nearly as much controversy or as much action being taken against the president, and i think the same will happen in Kenya. The people of Kenya do have a reason to be skeptical about the results of the second vote simply because the first one was tampered with, and just because they designed a new system to not be messed with does not mean that people can’t still rig it in some way, shape, or form. Another reason some people are probably skeptical is because Kenyatta won with a 98% vote for him, which just makes it sound like it could have been rigged. Odinga did tell his followers to boycott the vote, but it’s still hard to believe that all but 2% of them actually listened to him. There are a few ways that could help Kenya make a more fair election. Keeping the ballots offline could help because you can’t hack paper. Also they could just keep their eyes open for any suspicious activity when doing handwritten votes. If people look like they’re voting more than once or doing something to mess with the outcome, then they can intervene.

The Kenyan election stirred up controversy in different ethical and political groups in the region. The unpopular election will no doubt lead to violence. The cries of Odinga saying that the new government is “illegitimate” will incite more violence and resistance against the current government (nytimes). The BBC article focused on the violence that was happening after the second election, there was violence against locals “Mr Mutuku said he was out when the shooting happened,
‘I was called that my kid has been shot. When I came to the scene… it was chaos’”. This violence was against an innocent child and even more violence is going on with dissenters.
The skepticism surrounding the second election seems to stem from the fact that the official incharge of the new voter registration was killed days before the vote (CNN). This murder made voters skeptical about the credibility of the election, making them think that there was corruption with the election. To make the public comfortable with the legitimacy of the election the government needs to be more transparent about the events involving the election. The issue causing skepticism in average voter (not the supporters of Odinga) is the murder of Christopher Msando, the person in charge of the new voting system. The government needs to be open about who murdered this official, when they find out, to shed light that it was not a supporter of Kenyetta trying to rig the election. Another thing that will help the image of the government is the stopping of violence involving the police, there will inherently be violence with the job but the amount of violence right now is excessive. The government needs to stop the violence against innocent bystanders, such as “Geoffrey Mutinda [who] was killed on . . . while he was playing on the balcony of an apartment block in the capital, Nairobi.” (BBC). The government can not change the opinions of extremist Odinga supporters but they can win back the favor of citizens that do not have strong ties to either politician that ran for president.
Secure voting will always be a point of attack for the losers of any election (take a look at every United States election in the past since 1880). There will always be someone that will claim dangling chads affected the results of any election. No election can be perfect and no election system can be without fault.

@mikaylarieder I really like the connection you made. It puts into perspective this situation in more of an American term. The paper vote solution is also a really good idea, but I do believe people could vote on paper more than once with made-up names. There is so many people it would be hard to tell if you had seen a face before in line to vote and not much to stop them from voting legally.

The Republic of Kenya is a Democracy but it seems to me to appear more of a dictatorship. A democracy relies on informed citizens, a trustworthy government, and representation; none of which are happening in Kenya. Railia Odinga quit Kenya’s rerun election and accused the August 2017 election of fraud. If the voting polls were hacked in the prior 2017 election Railia makes it known that it would have happened again in the October reelection. At first it seemed as if Odinga was a sore loser but this is not the case. Kenya got a new voting system prior to the August election to prevent hacking. I am skeptical that the election was legitimate. Christopher Msando, the IEBC official in charge of the new voting technology was killed just days before the vote. This leads me to question Kenya’s ability to run a fair and free election. The election was rigged with mysterious killing, threats, violent protests, and claims of hacking. “The electoral commission’s problems were compounded when one of its senior members fled to the US, telling BBC she had received numerous death threats.” It is evident that there is manipulation occurring in the Kenya government. Kenya’s head chairman of the IEBC stated he “had no faith the country could deliver a fair election.” The Kenyan government has lost all trust. In order to fix the problem, the International Crisis Group suggests delaying the vote, but I believe that delaying the vote would result in more violence and controversy. To produce a more secure outcome, The Kenyan government needs to fix the source of the problem and eliminate corruption because it will flaw any new voting system or re- election.