Kenya political unrest was sparked by the irregularities in the national elections where opposition leader Raila Odinga appeared to have won.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Published on January 13, 2008, 12:00 am
BY Sunday Standard Team and Agencies
African Union’s (AU) mediator between President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga has asked political leaders not to take any further steps that would compromise the search for peace.
The US declared support for the latest peace initiative, with a raft of demands on ODM and the Government.
"Although we welcome the fact that both sides have indicated their commitment to dialogue and to ending violence, we are deeply disappointed that they have not been able to reach an agreement on the modalities for direct discussions."
The UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-Moon said, "The death toll stands at an appallingly high figure of more than 500 people, with more than 300,000 Kenyans displaced".
He called for a quick resolution to the crisis.
"In the face of the deeply troubling situation in Kenya, the Secretary-General calls once again on the political leadership of Kenya to find – urgently – an acceptable solution through dialogue so that the political crisis is resolved and the country returns to its peaceful and democratic path. The Secretary-General wishes to express his continued support for the various efforts being made by regional and international actors to help Kenyans arrive at a lasting solution,’’ read a statement from United Nations Information Centre, Nairobi.
He added: "Many of them are living in fear. That much of the violence appears to have been directed at specific communities is all the more worrisome. The killings must stop, alleged human rights violations should be investigated and those found responsible for crimes should be held accountable for their actions. The potential for further bloodshed remains high unless the political crisis is quickly resolved."
President Kibaki called for reconciliation a day after ODM called for mass action. He said there was no need to harbour grudges against each other.
"Let’s all forget the past and preach peace and reconciliation," he said.
Annan, a former United Nations secretary general, also asked them "not to create facts on the ground that would make it difficult for the Panel of Eminent African Personalities, which both sides to the election dispute had agreed to work with, to find viable and lasting solution."
The 2001 Nobel Peace laureate spoke as the US Government once again called for direct talks between Kibaki and Raila on the post-election violence that has claimed 300 lives and displaced 300,000.
"In our view, it is imperative for President Kibaki and Raila Odinga to sit together directly and without preconditions to discuss how to end the post-election crisis in a way that reflects the will of the Kenyan people,’’ said the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Dr Jendayi Frazer.
The US called for respect for the rule of law and the peoples’ right to assemble, as well as media freedom.
Serious flaws in the vote tallying
"We favoured no side during the electoral contest. We supported efforts to carry out transparent and fair elections. The generally peaceful and orderly voting process, and the record voter turnout, was a triumph for the Kenyan people, but the serious flaws in the vote tallying damaged the credibility of the process,’’ said the superpower.
The three statements came a day after ODM gave notice of three-day mass action rallies across the country beginning Wednesday.
It also came as government ban on live television coverage remained in force.
Frazer emphasised the fact that Kenyans believed the deadlock could be unlocked through a power-sharing arrangement.
Frazer added: "Both should acknowledge serious irregularities in the vote tallying, which made it impossible to determine with certainty the final result, and both must take forthright steps to end violence and ensure respect for the rule of law, consistent with respect for human rights."
The statement whose tone appear to harden compared to previous ones issued went on: "This particularly includes restoration of media freedom and freedom of peaceful assembly. We believe the Kenyan people have made clear that the way forward must embrace equitable power-sharing, an end to violence, reconciliation, and agreement on a specific agenda for constitutional and electoral reform."
Annan, who arrives in the country this week, to carry on from where AU chairman and Ghanaian President John Kufuor left, called on the Government and opposition to consider the interests of Kenyans and to show goodwill, leadership and maturity.
Annan said they were going to put together a secretariat to enable the panel work as expeditiously as possible to resolve many of the issues and to restore the East African country to normalcy.
Former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa and South Africa’s former First Lady Mrs Graca Machel will assist him.
Referring to the AU chairman’s trip to Kenya, he said it was essential and it had made a difference.
News agencies reported Annan would have more time to spend in Kenya than Kufuor, who stayed for just two days. Kufuor did bring Raila and Kibaki to the negotiating table for direct talks on poll dispute and subsequent post-election violence.
Annan spoke in Ghana and his statement was relayed by the national news agency there. He formally accepted the invitation from President Kufuor to head the panel.
President Kufuor, whose visit to Kenya was at the invitation of the two feuding parties, said he came with a programme, to get them to agree to immediate cessation of violence, to accept to use dialogue to settle their differences and to agree to talk under the aegis of the Panel of Eminent African leaders.
His visit coincided with the arrival of four former African presidents – Mkapa, Mr Joachim Chisano, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, and Sir Ketumile Masire – and Frazer’s.
Kofour on Saturday said during the two days, he won the support of both the Government and the opposition parties to abide by these.
Called for Kenyan solution
The US, however, insisted, "the post-electoral crisis can only be resolved through a Kenyan solution."
"In the meantime, the United States cannot conduct business as usual in Kenya. The Kenyan people recognise that the post-electoral crisis has revealed longstanding problems that must not be ignored. As a close friend and partner of Kenya, the United States will remain intensively engaged to help encourage resolution of the post-electoral crisis. We are convinced that Kenyans will achieve this, and that the country will emerge out of this crisis a stronger and more just democratic society,’’ the statement ran.
"Political negotiation is not an event, it is a process that can take a very long time, or a short time, all depends on the co-operation of the leaders," Annan said in Accra after meeting Kufuor.
"I regard it as a great responsibility and we’ll take it seriously to restore stability and quickly end the humanitarian crisis in that country," Annan added.
"We are not going to impose solutions but work together with (with both parties) to arrive at viable and long-lasting solutions to the problem," Annan said.
Addressing a press conference at Teleposta Towers accompanied by Defence minister Mr Yusuf Haji and Government Spokesman Dr Alfred Mutua and Information Minister Samuel Poghisio termed the agreement advertised by ODM as the one the President was to sign a fallacy.
"Kibaki never sent any emissary nor did he mandate anyone to hold discussions with ODM leaders through any intermediary on his behalf," said Poghisio.
Church leaders added their voice to the need to return to negotiations, which they cited as the only way out of the crisis.
The Catholic Church opposed the proposed mass action by ODM next week and called for dialogue.
Archbishop John Cardinal Njue said following the many deaths and massive destruction of property, dialogue was the best option.
"The country is undergoing a very difficult situation at the moment and calling for mass action next week would only add fuel to the already existing problem,’’ Njue said.
In Nairobi, 33 Anglican Church of Kenya bishops told Kibaki and Raila to submit to mediated negotiations.
"People should resort to mediated dialogue. A lot of suffering has taken place. Mass action will worsen the situation, as they will lead to looting. This will cause loss of life," warned Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi.
"We are calling for mediated settlement between the two so that a solution can be found. Both parties should submit themselves to dialogue," he added.
Religious leaders from the Kalenjin community supported mediation and called for prayers among Kenyans while encouraging peaceful co-existence.
The religious leaders, under the umbrella of Emo Community Development Society said in a statement: "We are encouraged by the numerous mediation efforts from world leaders and locals and prayers from many people all over the world who would wish to see Kenyans live peacefully and progressively as before."
It is not with surprise that I read the view that Mwai Kibaki is not the legitimate president of Kenya. This view is so pervasive that even many who supported the president have been deceived into taking it up.That it is so widespread is a tribute to the ODM’s knack for lies and its efficiency at pushing them as truth. It is also in no small part a result of the political ineptitude of the PNU and State House.The view is predicated on two strands of thought. The first, published by the ODM and a perpetuation of its hateful and divisive anti-GEMA strategy, declares that President Kibaki won only one of Kenya’s provinces and is therefore not the true president of all Kenya. The second, declares the election stolen by the incumbent, and rather cheekily insists that the extension of his tenancy at State House is a ‘coup’.
ReplyDeleteNational Support
This first argument is only one of the few in the litany of lies the ODM has rammed through a servile, biased media. The facts speak for themselves, Mwai Kibaki won 4 out of Kenya’s provinces and MPs running on pro-Kibaki platforms won more than 100 seats with victories in every single province. None of his rivals even came close to the same level of support. Kibaki also won a sizeable number of votes even in the provinces where he was overall second best, reaching the 25% mark in every province but Nyanza, where he still managed to poll 17% of the vote. The ODM candidate on the other hand posted a measly 2% and 5% in Central and Eastern provinces, and managed 25% in only six of the provinces.
‘But the bulk of the president’s votes were GEMA votes,’ comes the reply. Well, that may be true but the formulation GEMA itself makes into one what are properly a multitude of ethnicities. More importantly however, our democracy as currently fashioned makes no demands on the ethnicity of voters desiring merely that the victorious candidate have the approval of at least 25% from five provinces to underline his nationalist credentials. To reiterate, it is not communities, faiths or regions that vote. It is individuals.
This is no trivial point. The ODM has taken even before the election to making the case that their candidate was the People’s Candidate, Kenya’s candidate. That was all very well for that period when presentation and marketing were more important than truth; but in this the post-election period, the party and its supporters would do well to realise that by any estimation fully 4 million Kenyans declared their support for each of the two leading candidates. So it is that even now,as the party and its supporters persist in saying that the Kenyan people have been robbed, the Kenyan people are angry, they must remember that there are some Kenyans a substantial number, a majority even who actually voted for Kibaki - and who rejected the ODM.
For starters, it is most irresponsible, if typical of the ODM to neglect to take into account the votes of these 4 million, they are after all just GEMA, Gikuyu, Embu, Meru, Mbeere, Tharaka; you know those people, not Kenyans. This diligently crafted Us vs Them dichotomy explains why the ODM’s leaders have not yet seen fit to visit, or even declare peace with the communities that are being victimised by the outbreaks of violence- communities which in the pre-election campaigns they worked very hard to demonise. When it is not demonising them directly, the ODM and its agents continually seek to invite the GEMA to join Kenyans in voting ODM, proposing all the time that to vote differently is unKenyan.
This is part of the reason for the renewal in Kikuyu nationalism, a whole community has been forced to the wall by the invective of three years and two political campaigns. We stand in our millions -along with Kenyans of every ethnic persuasion in rejection of ethnic chauvinism- and declare to the ODM that we are adamant in our support for President Kibaki and that we too retain the inalienable right to the appellation, Kenyan. We respect that there are those, our brothers and sisters from across the country, with different political persuasions, but never in a million years would we think to pretend that those opinions made them less Kenyan than we are. If it is the sheer numbers in Central Kenya that intimidate the opposition into taking this position, also published as the 41 versus 1 strategy, then the ODM have to now get to their grassroots and urge a population boom. Anything else hurts all of us, and the victims of this hatred will not just be the Gikuyu. The economic and social effects of this policy of excluding one group from the whole will be profound, and as many in Western Kenya are finding, life without the other is not exactly a bed of roses.
The end of this hatred is especially urgent for ODM for, in light of the premeditated and barbaric ODM action in the Rift Valley and across the country, it is unlikely that too many Kenyans, even those who had previously aligned themselves with the party will be particularly drawn to it and its divisive politics any more. The consequences of all the strident screeching about Majimbo and the theory that the Gikuyu hogged all the country’s resources have finally manifested themselves.
Election irregularities
I find it most unfair to look merely at one set of election irregularities while turning a blind eye to the other. Such a predisposition is not only unhelpful, but declares a bias that precludes a just assessment of the elections. It is not unlinked to the over-arching theory of Gikuyu hegemony as it dictates that only one side in the election had the wherewithal to interfere with the vote.
The media and observers seem to have focused merely on crimes committed during the final vote tallying while ignoring the fact that there were several irregularities in ODM zones.
For starters, there was no free will in the vote in Nyanza. Long before the election begun, candidates who would have stood against the ODM nominees were compelled to stand down and those who resisted were demonised and accused of perfidy to the tribe. There were prior to the elections, outbreaks of violence against the disloyal, outbreaks which led to the displacement and non-participation of such persons. There are also credible reports that women and those from communities likely predisposed to vote different than the ODM were obstructed from exercising their voting rights by hooligans either inspired by or hired by the ODM. As the ODM candidate demanded at a campaign rally in Eldoret, ‘hatutaki madoadoa’.
Even worse, and as confirmed by KEDOF in their final vote report, agents representing parties allied to Mwai Kibaki and Kalonzo Musyoka were denied entry into vote counting and vote tallying centres, including most famously Nyayo Stadium where what had been widely billed a close race between Raila Odinga and Stanley Livondo was turned into a rout of suspiciously monumental proportions. This as Uhuru Kenyatta complained, came after Livondo and his group were locked out of the stadium.
Some have asked why the government did not then use the police to back up the blocked voters and insist that the opposition agents be allowed entry at these events. The truth is that the tense pre-election atmosphere did not allow for any use of force by the government, indeed any such moves would have been seen as persecution and would have cost the government votes at the election. Those asking this forget that there were already killings in Nyanza of police personnel prior to the election and that it is this state of violence that ensured that Kibaki and Kalonzo affiliated agents were wary of performing their duties there. Importantly also, any such interference would have undermined the independence of the ECK which was the organisation charged with the proper conduct of the elections. The instruments of legal and legitimate use of force are restricted to use in the protection of the polling station and its environs from the vagaries of the contestants and their agents.
Finally, it is most categorically not true that it is impossible to conduct a re-tally of the forms sent to Nairobi by the poll centres around the country. The agents of all the parties contesting the election carry with them copies of the results announced in these centres and should retain copies of the electoral forms. These can be availed for a national re-tallying, which as the Justice Minister Martha Karua told the BBC’s Hard Talk, the government is very willing to facilitate when ordered by a court of law. Karua herself was part of a group of politicians including George Nyamweya, James Orengo and Anyang’ Nyong’o who sat through the night of the 29th of December with ECK officials and went over the vote tallies from across the land. They subtracted the entire element of suspicious added on votes that the ODM had complained about and Kibaki’s total was adjusted accordingly.
When it was found that the vote still indicated a Kibaki victory, the ODM side sought the very next day to reverse their previous urge for the expeditious publication of the result (remember the ODM had on the 28th and 29th been putting pressure on Kivuitu to announce the victor) and instead began a campaign (Raila even stormed Kivuitu’s home at 0700) to have Kivuitu delay the announcement. Commentators seem to have forgotten that Musalia Mudavadi had already announced the election for the ODM or that there were riots in Kisumu that demanded the election result be announced. Now it seems we only focus on the pressure from the PNU and ODM-K, forgetting all the time the even greater pressure from the ODM the previous day.
As the leaked memo from World Bank country director Colin Bruce avers, the facts are clear. The ODM is only too aware that such a re-assessment would make clear that they lost the election, and are as a result wary of appealing to the courts for such a re-tallying. Mwai Kibaki is the legal, but also the legitimate president of Kenya, which fact will soon be proved in a court of law