Kenya is among the East African countries that got its independence in 1963. Beginning in 1952 there was serious fighting between the people and the British colonial government. A movement of fighters known as the Mau Mau moved to the countryside and launched their struggle from there. At that time, various political party leaders of the KAU (Kenya African Union) were arrested—among them Jomo Kenyatte, Achieng Oneko, Fred Kubai, Kungu Karumba, Bildad Kaggia and Paul Ngei. All were sentenced to 7 years imprisonment.
Since the central leadership was imprisoned, new leaders emerged to continue the fight—men such as F.W. Odede, Joseph Murumbi, Tom Mboya Argwings Kodhek and Odinga Oginga, father of 2007 opposition candidate Raila Odinga. During this time, KAU became KANU (Kenya African National Union). In 1961, KANU was asked to form a government by the British and specifically they asked Raila’s father Odinga to be the first president of Kenya. He, along with other leaders such as Tom Mboya (both of the Luo ethnic group) refused and instead demanded that their party’s leaders be released from prison. As a counter move, KANU elected imprisoned Jomo Kenyatta (a Kikuyu) as President of their party. Later that year, the leaders were released.
When independence finally came about, Kenyatta assumed the presidency. At first Odinga Oginga was named Vice President. But then at a Limuru conference Kenyatta appointed several vice Presidents which washed down the position of Odinga. Odinga resigned in protest and formed the (KPU) Kenya Peoples Union Party. From here Odinga Oginga laid the foundation of opposition politics in Kenya.
Throughout his time in power, Kenyatta pushed away all other people who were imprisoned with him and only wanted to glorify himself alone. He ignored the Mau Mau fighters. And teachers like Odinga Oging were alienated, causing them to seek refuge among their own people. For Odinga, this meant the Luo ethnic group. Other tribes also felt betrayed by Kenyatta since the struggle to get independence was not only done by Kikuyus alone. Kenyatta had become a dictator—he even put Mr. Odinga Oginga under house arrest. It was pure betrayal.
When Kenyatta died while sleeping in August 1978 his trusted vice president, Daniel Arap Moi, took over and continued the dictatorial rule. For the 24 years Moi ruled Kenya there were no presidential elections.
President Moi further alienated the Luo ethnic group by detaining Raila Odinga. But with multipartyism, Raila was the people’s hero. He came to politics and continually advocated for the poor man’s oppression by the political system. The issues of land have never been resolved. The squatter problem in Kenya is as a result of the government not giving back the land to its rightful owners. Instead President Kenyatta and Moi allocated themselves and their families and friends large tracks of land while ignoring the squatters. Justice in this area has been the continued message from Mr. Raila Odinga—in the vein of his father who late in life published a book entitled “Not yet Uhuru,” meaning that Kenya has never had real independence.
With the demise of communism in 1990’s, the USA was left as the super-power and globalization and the call for the rule of law was central. International pressure forced Kenya to amend its constitution to create term limits for the Presidency. Thus, Moi was forced out of office in Dec. 2002. He advocated that Uhuru Kenyatta (former President Kenyatta’s son) as the most suitable candidate to replace him, but Kenyans never voted him in. Instead Moi’s vice president—Mwai Kibaki—won the elections.
Ironically he won with the support of Raila Odinga himself. During the last election, the opposition had consolidated itself into the NARC – National Rainbow Coalition. Raila Odinga himself led Kenyans to Uhuru park in endorsing Kibaki as president and stood by him when he was a in a terrible road accident. It was Raila who went around the country campaigning for Kibaki on condition that they had a memorandum of understanding: Kibaki was to be president for one term and then to leave office. This did not happen.
During his term, Kibaki was to a amend the constitution and create a Prime Ministers post which was to be Raila’s. All these promises were not met and Kibaki instead fired all those who helped him campaign.
Kibaki also failed to deliver other promised constitutional changes. Most Kenyans wanted to have a federal model of government similar to that of the USA.
During the campaign for a new constitution Raila led a team that advocated for this federal model. Raila’s supporters won on this issue and then Kibaki sacked all Ministers who backed Raila.
The current suspicion between the two leaders lies squarely on lack of trust.
There were many early signs that the election was going to be rigged.
According to inter-party arrangements, electoral commissioners were to be appointed from various political parties. But Kibaki replaced commissioners without regard to the law and appointed his own cronies who helped in the rigging. Also, cases of ballot papers—specifically marked presidential ballot papers—were said to be found in government operated police stations before the elections.
As early as August 2007, the internationally recognized Steadman polling was already indicating that Raila was a head of Kibaki and two weeks to the end of the campaign period Raila was already leading in opinion polls.
And then during the counting there were electrical outages which is very suspicious.
By Saturday, December 29th the vote counting had almost ended and Raila had just under 100,000 vote lead over Kibaki. But many of the polling stations—specifically Kibaki’s strongholds—had not yet handed over their ballots. The assumption was that there were no more than 53,000 additional votes for Kibaki.
But then the announcement came from Nairobi that Kibaki had 95,000 more votes, making him the winner by a slim margin. These additional votes came from places where Kibaki controlled things so we believe that the figures were deliberately increased so that Kibaki could be declared the winner.
At 5:48 p.m on Sunday, the electoral chairman announces Kibaki as the winner.
Within 10 minutes, the chief justice and a few others are already at state house in Nairobi to swear in the president. This is very abnormal: traditionally the president is sworn in at Uhuru Park in public in the presence of diplomats and other regional presidents much later.
The ceremony was so rushed that they did not even play the national anthem.
Everyone here is asking questions: Why was the chief justice already ready to have the ceremony? Why the rush to swear in Mr. Kibaki?
The people saw in Raila a 3rd liberation. Kenyans voted for change, they are tired of corruption and nepotism as practiced by the Kibaki administration where over 65% of the public appointments come from the Kikuyu community, the president’s tribe.
That’s why out of 8 provinces in Kenya Raila won in 6 provinces. President Kibaki only won in 1 province and the other main candidtate Kalonzo got 1 province.
And this is why they responded with such rage when this result was stolen from them.
Generally life is unbearable for the Kenyan people. The price of all commodities has gone up. Schools are closed. Villagers are burying victims of police brutality at the end of each day.
The government has made it impossible to freely exchange view points and has conditioned the press to only report in a certain way and on certain information. The freedom of expression that Kenyas fought for has been curtailed. We rely on the BBC for current news.
Since the elections, many things have come to light. The Chairman of the electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, has since admitted that he is not sure that Kibaki won the elections, he claimed that he was under pressure to release results and that the results were tainted.
The Law Society of Kenya has asked Kibaki to respect Kenyans and to step down because he was sworn in illegally. The Law society has denounced electoral commissioner Kivuitu and has demanded his resignation and subsequent replacement. They also demand that new presidential elections be carried out.
The British High Commission says it believes that the presidential election has been rigged. According to Mr. Blair of Britain, Mr. Kibaki has joined the rank of other African leaders who—like Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe—only are only concerned about their own indispensability. This dishonorable clique will cling will cling to office even when this tips their countries into chaos. Indeed, history teaches us the lesson that scarce is the African President willing to step down even in the wake of an election defeat. If Mr.Kibaki is determined to hold power regardless at the cost in lives, we now know what our future holds.
The United States government believes that the election was rigged. Condelleza Rice sent her Assistant to Secretary of State as a special envoy to Kenya. She recommended that new elections be held.
The international community must put pressure on Kibaki to hold a re-election. The I.M.F must stop aid until Kibaki resigns. The new presidential election must be with the collaboration of United Nations, African Union and other international observers. Unless there is real change, killings of innocent people—especially defenseless women and children—will continue.
A delegation of former African presidents led by Mkapa of Tanzania, Assistant secretary of state Desmond Tutu and the chairman of African union are in the country to play mediators for the conflict. It is ironic that Kibaki has welcomed the intervention of these heads of state because it seems to the Kenyan people that he has already decided what he is going to do and how he is going to do it. He is already taking steps to form his government—this shows he is not open to dialogue.
We pray for them; an appeal must be made to Raila and Kibaki to acknowledge that this kind of violent ethnic conflict does not make sense for our beloved Kenya. When you examine the votes, they both garnered multi-ethnic support throughout the country. A show-down between the two will only perpetuate a running battle with the police and the ready-to-kill General Service Unit (GSU) and it will only plunge the country into deeper chaos.
The whole issue of ethnicity in Kenya has to be considered seriously. The killings that are taking place is a pointer to ethnic cancer that lurks too thinly beneath the skins of different communities in Kenya. Kibaki and Raila must address the issue head on and not expect that things will get better without efforts on their part to calm this conflict.
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