Nairobi (Kenya)

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares82 Views

    Flooding Inundates Kenya, Killing at Least 32 and Displacing Thousands

    by

    Days of heavy rains have pummeled parts of Kenya, leaving at least 32 dead, 15 injured and more than 40,000 people displaced, according to officials. They said that flooding had killed nearly 1,000 farm animals and destroyed thousands of acres of crops, with more rain expected across the country.The rains began in March during what is known in the country as the “long rains,” but precipitation intensified over the past week, according to the Kenya Meteorological Department.In Nairobi, where some of the heaviest rain has fallen, more than 30,000 people have been displaced, according to the United Nations. On Tuesday, 18 people, including seven children, were stranded, and later rescued, in Nairobi after heavy rain, the Kenya Red Cross Society said.Edwin Sifuna, a senator in Nairobi County, said on social media that the local government there was “clearly overwhelmed,” and he called on the federal government for help.“The situation in Nairobi has escalated to extreme levels,” he wrote in a post that included video of people stranded on rooftops surrounded by floodwaters.The rains were not expected to subside over the next few days, according to the Kenya Meteorological Department, which had rain in the forecast for parts of the country, including Nairobi, through Monday.Here are photos of the flooding:Daniel Irungu/EPA, via ShutterstockA man crossing a flooded river on a pipeline in Mathare, a neighborhood of slums in Nairobi where many live in tin shacks.Daniel Irungu/EPA, via ShutterstockA man swimming through floodwaters to try to rescue people stranded in their homes in Ngondo Village in Mathare.Simon Maina/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesResidents of Mathare tried to salvage goods from their homes.Daniel Irungu/EPA, via ShutterstockResidents of Ngondo Village tried to clear muddy water from their homes.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPeople clung to buses and trucks to avoid flooded roadways in Nairobi.Simon Maina/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDozens of people in Mathare were stranded in their homes after heavy rains.Monicah Mwangi/ReutersFlooding caused widespread damage in Nairobi.Patrick Ngugi/Associated PressPeople in the Githurai area used a boat to get through floodwaters.Thomas Mukoya/ReutersFlooding in a settlement in Machakos County inundated entire roadways.Thomas Mukoya/ReutersFrom a bridge, two men watched the swollen Athi River near Nairobi. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Paul Gicheru, Kenya Lawyer on Trial at I.C.C., Is Found Dead

      by

      Paul Gicheru was accused of tampering with witnesses in favor of President William Ruto, whose trial at The Hague collapsed in 2016. The cause of death is not yet known.NAIROBI, Kenya — A Kenyan lawyer on trial at the International Criminal Court on charges of witness tampering in a case linked to President William Ruto was found dead at his home in a suburb of the capital, Nairobi, his family and the police said on Tuesday.The lawyer, Paul Gicheru, had been awaiting a verdict in the trial, which took place in The Hague from February to June. Prosecutors accused him of bribing and intimidating witnesses to prevent them from testifying against Mr. Ruto over his role in post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008.Mr. Ruto, who announced his new cabinet on Tuesday, was sworn in as president on Sept. 13 after winning last month’s hard-fought election by a narrow margin.Michael G. Karnavas, Mr. Gicheru’s lawyer, confirmed his death, which was received with shock by many in Kenya — the latest twist in a decade-long legal journey at the International Criminal Court, punctuated by collapsed trials, disappearing witnesses and accusations of meddling, that has drawn in Kenya’s leaders and framed its politics.Kenyan news reports, citing the police, said that Mr. Gicheru went to sleep on Monday after a meal at his home in Karen, a wealthy Nairobi suburb, and was found dead later that night. His son was taken to a hospital and complained of stomach pains after eating the same meal.Mr. Karnavas said that he suspected foul play and called on the Kenyan authorities and the International Criminal Court to open a full investigation into the death. “It’s somewhat odd that after the election in Kenya, and before the court issues its judgment, there is this incident,” he said, speaking by phone. “This warrants the I.C.C. stepping up to the plate.”But in comments to reporters in Kenya, John Khaminwa, a lawyer for the Gicheru family in Kenya, downplayed suggestions of poisoning, and said the family was waiting for an autopsy to be completed and for the police to issue its preliminary report.Mr. Gicheru caused a sensation in Kenya in late 2020 when he flew to Amsterdam to present himself to the International Criminal Court, after years of refusing to stand trial and resisting the court’s efforts to have him extradited to The Hague.When the trial started this year, Mr. Gicheru pleaded not guilty and declined to testify. He returned to Kenya when the trial ended in June to await the verdict. A spokesman for the International Criminal Court said in an email that under the court’s guidelines, a verdict should be delivered within 10 months.President William Ruto of Kenya at the U.N. General Assembly last week. He was sworn in this month after winning a hard-fought election in August by a narrow margin.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesThe Kenya Human Rights Commission called the news of his death “shocking,” and urged the authorities to mount a swift investigation. In a statement, the Law Society of Kenya reiterated that call, noting that “several witnesses in the I.C.C. cases have either disappeared or died,” and wished a speedy recovery to Mr. Gicheru’s hospitalized son.Mr. Gicheru’s trial stemmed from a series of high-profile prosecutions that implicated some of Kenya’s most prominent politicians in a wave of violence after the disputed 2007 elections that killed at least 1,200 people and forced another 600,000 to flee their homes.In 2011, the International Criminal Court indicted Mr. Ruto for crimes against humanity over accusations that he orchestrated violence in his home area, the Rift Valley, distributing weapons and issuing kill lists of opposition supporters from rival ethnic groups.Uhuru Kenyatta, then a political rival of Mr. Ruto, was also indicted on similar charges.By 2016, the cases against both men collapsed after key witnesses recanted their testimony and the Kenyan government stopped cooperating with the court. By then, Mr. Ruto and Mr. Kenyatta had resolved their political differences to unite as a formidable force. Together they won the 2013 election, with Mr. Kenyatta as president and Mr. Ruto as his deputy, and were re-elected in 2017.Not only did the I.C.C. charges unite the two leaders, but it also provided them with a powerful electoral argument. After becoming president in 2013, Mr. Kenyatta denounced the court as a “toy of declining imperial powers.”But in dismissing the charge against Mr. Ruto, the court did not declare him innocent, leaving open the possibility that he could face a new trial. And it had already, in 2015, indicted Mr. Gicheru, a provincial lawyer from the same area as Mr. Ruto, on accusations that he ran a witness tampering scheme responsible for scuppering the trial.During the trial that started in February, prosecutors said that Mr. Gicheru had intimidated or offered bribes of up to $41,600 to witnesses who withdrew their testimony against Mr. Ruto and Joshua Sang, a radio journalist accused of stoking political violence in the Rift Valley after the 2007 vote.Prosecutors told the court that Mr. Gicheru’s actions, from 2013 to 2015, had caused four “vital” witnesses to recant their testimony. Eight people testified against him, including witnesses who said that they been threatened and that they feared for their lives.The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, recused himself from the Gicheru case because he had represented Mr. Ruto as a defense lawyer during the trial that collapsed in 2016.Protesters and the police in Eldoret, Kenya, in 2008. Mr. Gicheru had been accused of intimidating witnesses to prevent them from testifying against Mr. Ruto over his role in post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008.Ben Curtis/Associated PressAfter Mr. Ruto’s case collapsed, the International Criminal Court prosecutions receded from prominence in Kenya. Mr. Gicheru, by then a senior Kenya government official, successfully opposed efforts by the court to have him extradited to The Hague.But the affair returned to prominence in November 2020 when Mr. Gicheru voluntarily flew to The Hague with his wife and presented himself for trial at The Hague.The unexpected move by Mr. Gicheru stoked widespread speculation inside Kenya that it was linked to the crumbling relationship between Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto. Two years earlier, Mr. Kenyatta had signed a political pact with Raila Odinga, a veteran opposition leader expected to contest the 2022 election, that his deputy, Mr. Ruto, saw as a betrayal.When Mr. Gicheru presented himself for trial in 2020, reports in Kenyan news media speculated that he had been pressured or inducted to present himself for trial as part of an effort to resurrect the I.C.C. case against Mr. Ruto.His lawyer, Mr. Karnavas, said Mr. Gicheru’s motivation was simply to clear his name. “It was a sword of Damocles,” Mr. Karnavas said.During the hearings early this year, no evidence emerged that directly linked the witness tampering scheme to Mr. Ruto, and the issue hardly figured in the bitterly fought election campaign that ended in August, with Mr. Ruto’s narrow victory over Mr. Odinga.Mr. Karnavas said the prosecution’s case was weak and, had Mr. Gicheru lived to hear the verdict, he was confident he would have been acquitted.“Here’s someone who came voluntarily to clear his name, knowing the consequences,” he said. “Even if there’s no foul play, there needs to be an investigation.” More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Kenya Elects New President, but Disputes Erupt

      by

      Kenya is often held up as a beacon of democracy in Africa, but as the latest election showed, it is not always pretty. Disputes started even before a winner was named.NAIROBI, Kenya — On a continent where military coups and rubber stamp elections have proliferated in recent years, Kenya stands out.Despite its flaws and endemic corruption, the East African nation and economic powerhouse has steadily grown into a symbol of what is possible, its democracy underpinned by a strong Constitution and its hard-fought elections an example to other African nations seeking to carve a path away from autocracy. But Kenya has just hit a speed bump.On Monday, a winner was declared in its latest presidential election, ending an unpredictable battle that had millions of Kenyans glued to their televisions and smartphones as the results rolled in. William Ruto, the president-elect, beamed as he addressed a hall filled with roaring supporters, lauding the “very historic, democratic occasion.”Vice President William Ruto of Kenya was named the winner of the country’s presidential election. Before the announcement, four out of the country’s seven election commissioners refused to verify the results.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the losing candidate, Raila Odinga, rejected the result even before it was announced. A fracas erupted in the hall where Mr. Ruto had been speaking, and where the votes had been counted, sending chairs and fists flying. And four electoral commissioners stormed out, casting doubt on a result that is almost certain to end up in court.And so the election hangs in the balance, scrutinized not just at home but across a continent where Kenya’s rambunctious democracy is among those that are viewed as indicators of progress.“We do not have the luxury to look back, we do not have the luxury to point fingers,” Mr. Ruto said. “We must close ranks to work together.”It started out as a day of hope.Early in the morning, several thousand people began packing into the giant hall in a Nairobi suburb to hear the election results, following an arduous six-day count that had the country on tenterhooks.Mr. Ruto before the announcement of the results of Kenya’s presidential election on Monday.Monicah Mwangi/ReutersMr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga had been neck-and-neck throughout the count, sometimes separated by as few as 7,000 votes, according to unofficial news media tallies. Those razor-thin margins left many nervous: Although its democracy is robust, Kenya’s elections can be vicious, and its last three contests were marred by disputed results that led to protracted crises, court cases and street violence that in 2007 killed over 1,200 people.Chastened by those failures, the electoral commission had gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure a clean vote. Within 24 hours of polls closing last Tuesday evening, it had posted to its website images showing the results from nearly every polling station — over 46,000 of them.But as Wafula Chebukati, the chief electoral commissioner, prepared to announce the winner on Monday, one of Mr. Odinga’s top aides called an impromptu news conference outside.“This was the most mismanaged election in Kenya’s history,” Saitabao Ole Kanchory told reporters in a flurry of invective that described the counting center as “a crime scene” and called on those in charge “to be arrested.”Moments later, pandemonium erupted inside the hall.Supporters of Mr. Odinga, including Mr. Ole Kanchory, stormed the dais, throwing chairs on the floor and clashing with security officials brandishing truncheons. Foreign diplomats and election observers fled to a backstage area — but a choir that had been belting out gospel songs for much of the day continued to sing.A Kenyan police officer firing tear gas at protesters who set tires on fire in Kisumu on Monday.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOnce the situation calmed, Mr. Chebukati emerged to deliver a short speech in which he noted that two of his commissioners had been injured in the melee — and others harassed, “arbitrarily arrested” or disappeared — before proceeding to announce the results.Mr. Ruto received 50.49 percent of votes, he said, against 48.85 percent for Mr. Odinga, a difference of just 233,211 votes but enough to avoid a runoff.In a speech that appeared intended to project authority and offer reassurance, Mr. Ruto thanked his supporters and vowed to work for the good of Kenya. He promised to set aside the bitterness of the campaign — and the chaotic scenes minutes earlier — to concentrate on the country’s flailing economy.“There is no room for vengeance,” Mr. Ruto said, flanked by his wife and by his running mate, Rigathi Gachagua. “Our country is at a stage where we need all hands on deck to move it forward. We do not have the luxury to look back.”Celebrations erupted in the streets of Eldoret, a stronghold for Mr. Ruto in the Rift Valley, where there was a deafening cacophony of horns, whistles and chants filling the downtown area.But in much of the country, his victory was overshadowed by a major development: Four of the seven electoral commissioners refused to verify the vote, defying Mr. Chebukati and decamping to a luxury hotel where they denounced “the opaque nature” of the final phase of the count.Those commissioners, it turned out, had been appointed by Mr. Odinga’s most prominent ally in the race, President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is barred by term limits from running again.Speaking to journalists a few hours later, Mr. Ruto dismissed their declaration as a “side show.” Under Kenyan law, he said, Mr. Chebukati alone is responsible for declaring the winner.“Legally, constitutionally, the four commissioners pose no threat at all to the legality of the declaration,” Mr. Ruto said.Supporters of Raila Odinga protesting in Kibera after Mr. Ruto was declared president-elect.Marco Longari/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesStill, the drama suggested that a day that should have signaled the end of the presidential contest might end up being just another chapter in the nail-biter race that has had Kenyans on the edge of their seats since the vote on Tuesday.The candidates were a study in contrasts.Mr. Odinga, 77, a leftist from one of Kenya’s most storied political dynasties, made his first bid for the presidency in 1997. He ran three more times, always losing, before trying again this year.Although he did once serve as prime minister, Mr. Odinga’s electoral defeats embodied the broader frustrations of his ethnic group, the Luo, which has never controlled the Kenyan presidency in all the years since the nation gained independence from Britain in 1963.Mr. Ruto, 55, the country’s vice president and a wealthy businessman, cast himself as champion of Kenya’s “hustler nation” — the disillusioned, mostly young strivers struggling to gain a foothold. He frequently told voters about his humble origins, including a barefoot childhood and an early career selling chickens on the side of a busy highway.That image contrasted with Mr. Ruto’s considerable wealth, which has grown during his political career to include a luxury hotel, thousands of acres of land and a large poultry processing plant.While the “hustler” pitch resonated powerfully with some Kenyans, others just shrugged. Just 40 percent of Kenyans under 35 registered to vote in this election, and the 65 percent turnout was sharply down from the 80 percent reported in the 2017 election.Mr. Ruto, center left, and his running mate, Rigathi Gachagua, center right, after the election results were announced.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe low turnout appeared to be a rejection of what many saw as a bad choice between candidates from their country’s discredited political elite.In voting for Mr. Ruto, millions of Kenyans overlooked the charges he once faced at the International Criminal Court, which a decade ago accused him of whipping up the storm of violence after the 2007 election that nearly pushed Kenya into a civil war.The charges included murder, persecution and forcing people to leave their homes, but the case collapsed in 2016. The Kenyan government — Mr. Ruto was vice president — engaged in what the court said was “witness interference and political meddling.”Mr. Ruto was running not just against Mr. Odinga but, in effect, against his own boss, Mr. Kenyatta, whom he accused of betrayal for backing Mr. Odinga.Instead of delivering votes for his chosen successor, Mr. Kenyatta suffered a humiliating rebuke from voters in his heartland, the Mount Kenya region, where ethnic Kikuyus rejected his allies across the board. Even at the polling station where Mr. Kenyatta cast his vote on Tuesday, Mr. Ruto scored a sweeping majority, the results showed.Debilitating economic troubles provided a bleak backdrop to Tuesday’s vote. The tourism-reliant economy has been battered in recent years, first by the coronavirus pandemic, then by Russia’s assault on Ukraine, which caused food and fuel prices to rise even more amid a global downturn.“Maize flour, cooking oil, cooking gas — everything is going up,” Abzed Osman, an actor who also works in tourism, said as he stood in line to vote on Tuesday in the Nairobi district of Kibera, Africa’s largest shantytown.By Monday evening in Kisumu County, one of Mr. Odinga’s strongholds in western Kenya, hundreds of protesters who had been eagerly awaiting the results began demonstrating and burning tires, witnesses said.Hours later a spokesman for Mr. Odinga, Dennis Onsarigo, said the candidate planned to address the nation on Tuesday.The police fired tear gas as people protested the election results in Kisumu.Ed Ram/Getty ImagesDeclan Walsh More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Kenya on Edge as Media’s Election Tally Suddenly Stops

      by

      An attempt at radical transparency by the election commission, which uploaded raw ballot numbers online, led to divergent tallies. “People are so tense that they cannot even think straight.”NAIROBI, Kenya — As results poured in from Kenya’s cliffhanger presidential election, patrons at a restaurant in Eldoret, 150 miles north of Nairobi, the capital, stared up at six television screens on Thursday night that were showing the competing tallies by Kenyan news media outlets.With 90 percent of the votes tallied, the two main contenders, William Ruto and Raila Odinga, were only a few thousand votes apart. Each had about 49 percent of the vote.“People are so tense,” said Kennedy Orangi, a hospital nurse brandishing two cellphones, “that they cannot even think straight.”Then the tallies ground to a halt.Suddenly, millions of Kenyans, who had been glued to their televisions, radios and phones since Tuesday’s vote, were in the dark about the latest results of a neck-and-neck presidential race that has gripped the country, and is being scrutinized far beyond.On Friday, Kenyan news organizations gave various explanations for stopping their counts, including fears of hacking and a desire to “synchronize” their results.But to many Kenyans, it seemed they got cold feet and shied away from having to declare the winner in a high-stakes political battle that pits Mr. Ruto, the country’s vice president, against Mr. Odinga, a political veteran making his fifth run for the presidency.Now, voters have to continue their nail-biting wait. Officials say it will likely be Sunday, at the earliest, before the election commission can declare an official winner in the race — and to know whether either candidate can pass the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff.Electoral workers sit next to stacked ballot boxes after tallying finished in the Shauri Moyo area of Nairobi, on Friday.Ben Curtis/Associated PressThe stakes in this election are high for Kenya, an East African powerhouse with a recent history of turbulent elections. But it also reverberates beyond, as a litmus test for democracy at a time when authoritarianism is advancing across Africa, and the globe.“Kenya is an anchor for stability, security and democracy — not just in the region, or on this continent, but across the globe,” the embassies of the United States and 13 other Western countries said in a statement on the eve of the election.Seared by criticism of its failings in previous votes, the national election commission went to great lengths to make this an exemplary election.With a budget of over $370 million, one of the highest per voter costs in the world, the commission sourced printed paper ballots from Europe that had more security features than Kenya’s currency notes. It deployed biometric technology to identify voters by their fingerprints and images.The election commission “has done a very professional job,” said Johnnie Carson, a former U.S. ambassador to Kenya who is serving as an election observer. The biometric system “worked better than many people anticipated and has proved to be a useful model to build on.” More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Kenyans Await Results as Votes Are Counted in Presidential Race

      by

      Conflicting estimates of which candidate was ahead suggested a very tight race. Official results are expected to take several days.NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyans waited anxiously on Wednesday for the results of their presidential election, the most closely fought in years, amid conflicting estimates of which candidate was ahead.Unofficial tallies by several Kenyan news outlets put William Ruto, the country’s vice president, who campaigned as the champion of Kenya’s “hustlers” — struggling young people — at least three percentage points ahead of his rival, Raila Odinga.But at least one major news organization put Mr. Odinga, a former political detainee who later became prime minister and is making his fifth run for the presidency, ahead by a similar margin in the balloting held on Tuesday.The conflicting estimates, based on preliminary counts of fewer than half of all votes, only confirmed that the race to lead Kenya, an East African powerhouse struggling through a grinding economic crisis, was too close to call.A campaign billboard for Raila Odinga and his running mate, Martha Karua, in Nairobi on Wednesday.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe period between voting and results is especially delicate in Kenya, where it has been a focus of vote-rigging accusations. The last three presidential elections ended in chaos after Mr. Odinga, the losing candidate in each of those contests, claimed to have been cheated. In 2007, that dispute triggered widespread violence in which over 1,200 people were killed.By Wednesday evening, 24 hours after polls closed, the national election commission reported that 99 percent of results from all polling stations had been electronically submitted — and were publicly available on the commission’s website.But those results came in the form of about 45,000 images, all handwritten tally sheets, which greatly slowed the task of determining the overall result. On top of that, electoral officials said it could take several days more to declare a winner because they must verify every electronic image against its paper original — a process that had not even begun on Wednesday evening.However, there is likely to be at least an unofficial result by Thursday, when news organizations are expected to have completed their private tallies of the entire vote.Ordinary Kenyans, meanwhile, waited with bated breath.A member of the electoral commission with a ballot box, on Wednesday in Kiambu County, Kenya.Fredrik Lerneryd/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn small towns throughout the southern part of the Rift Valley, where ethnic violence broke out after the 2007 election, markets and bus stops were nearly empty in anticipation of fresh trouble, and many businesses and restaurants were closed. Some people who had stayed behind said they had sent their families away to keep them safe and had remained behind to watch out for their properties. In Nakuru, the biggest city in the Rift Valley, motorcycle taxi drivers argued about who had won. In nearby Molo, young men clustered around a newspaper stand to scrutinize headlines about the race.And at her home outside Eldoret, Grace Nyambura flipped through the TV news stations and incessantly scrolled through her smartphone, checking for the latest indications of a result. She had sent her three children to stay in the city of Eldoret, fearing an outbreak of violence. “We cannot sleep,” said Ms. Nyambura, 36, who left her work tending a plot of avocados and maize plants to follow the news. “These results have taken over our lives,” she added. “We need to know how things will end.”Not everyone was so engaged. The head of the election commission, Wafula Chebukati, said turnout would exceed 65 percent — higher than the commission’s estimate of 60 percent on Tuesday, but still considerably below the 80 percent figure of the last election.Soaring food prices combined with disillusionment at the choice of candidates seem to have persuaded some Kenyans to stay at home. Although their images are strikingly different, Mr. Ruto, 55, and Mr. Odinga, 77, are both products of Kenya’s calcified political elite, which is notorious for its shifting alliances and endemic corruption.“I just feel like there’s no change,” said Florence Wangari, 30, an event planner in Nakuru who opted to catch up with some work on Tuesday, a public holiday, instead of “wasting time in line” to vote.Like others, Ms. Wangari pointed to the high unemployment rate and the government’s failure to deliver decent education and health care. It feels as if “there’s nothing that my vote is going to change,” she said.Even so, Mr. Ruto appeared to have broken through in some areas with his appeal to frustrated “hustlers,” a novelty in a country where political choices are often shaped by ethnic loyalties.Early results showed him polling strongly in the coastal region, where Mr. Odinga hoped to shore up his base, and, crucially, in Mount Kenya, the crucible of Kenyan politics.Using a projector to follow the counting of votes, on Wednesday in Nairobi.Thomas Mukoya/ReutersIn recent years, President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was barred by term limits from running again this year, had a falling-out with Mr. Ruto, his running mate in the last two elections, and forged an alliance with Mr. Odinga, his adversary in those contests.Mr. Odinga had been counting on that realignment to boost his support in the central Mount Kenya region, primary home of the Kikuyu ethnic group that includes Mr. Kenyatta and has dominated Kenyan politics for decades.But initial results showed Mr. Odinga polling disappointingly in that area — a blow to his electoral fortunes but also an implicit rejection of Mr. Kenyatta, whose extensive business interests in the area have become a source of popular resentment.As the unofficial counts progressed, prominent supporters in both camps claimed their candidate was emerging victorious. But others appealed to members of the public to band together and crowdsource a tallying effort — and help to figure out who their next president will be.Declan Walsh More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Voting Is Over in Kenya’s Election. Here’s What Comes Next

      by

      The two front-runners for the presidency — one making his fifth attempt — said victory was within reach. But a dispute over the results seems inevitable, and the next phase could be turbulent.NAIROBI, Kenya — A wave of relief tinged with jubilation washed across Kenya on Tuesday as its hotly contested presidential election passed largely peacefully after months of bitter jostling and mud slinging. Supporters feted one of the front-runners, Raila Odinga, at his Nairobi stronghold, while his rival, William Ruto, praised the majesty of democracy after casting his ballot before dawn.But as the voting ended, a new battle was likely beginning.The close of polls saw Kenya’s election shift into a new and unpredictable phase that, if previous polls are a guide, could be rocky. Past elections have been followed by accusations of vote-rigging, protracted courtroom wrangling, bouts of street violence and, in 2017, a shocking murder mystery.It could take weeks, even months, before a new president is sworn in.“People just don’t trust the system,” Charles Owuiti, a factory manager, said as he waited to cast his ballot in Nairobi, the line snaking through a crowded schoolyard.Still, the corrosive ethnic politics that framed previous electoral contests have been dialed down. In the Rift Valley, the scene of prior electoral clashes, fewer people than in the previous years fled their homes fearing they might be attacked.A large crowd filled the streets in support of Raila Odinga as he cast his ballot in Kenya’s presidential election.Daniel Irungu/EPA, via ShutterstockInstead, Kenyans streamed into polling stations across the country, some in the predawn darkness, to choose not just their president, but also parliamentarians and local leaders. Among the four candidates for president, the vast majority of voters opted for either Mr. Odinga, a 77-year-old opposition leader running for the fifth time, or Mr. Ruto, the outgoing vice president and self-declared champion of Kenya’s “hustler nation” — its frustrated youth.“Baba! Baba!” yelled young men who crushed around Mr. Odinga’s vehicle in Kibera, on the outskirts of Nairobi and said to be Africa’s largest slum. They used his nickname, which means “father.” The septuagenarian leader struggled to keep his feet as he was swept into a polling station.Mr. Ruto made a show of apparent humility while casting his vote. “Moments like this is when the mighty and the powerful come to the realization that the simple and ordinary eventually make the choice,” he told reporters.But for many Kenyans, that wasn’t a choice worth making. The electoral commission estimated voter turnout at 60 percent of the country’s 22 million voters — a huge drop from the 80 percent turnout of the 2017 election, and a sign that many Kenyans, perhaps stung by economic hardship or jaded by endemic corruption, preferred to stay home.“Either way, there’s no hope,” said Zena Atitala, an unemployed tech worker, outside a voting station in Kibera. “Of the two candidates, we are choosing the better thief.”Anger at the soaring cost of living was palpable. Battered by the double-punch of the pandemic and the Ukraine war, Kenya’s economy has reeled under rising prices of food and fuel this year. The departing government, led by President Uhuru Kenyatta, sought to ease the hardship with flour and gasoline subsidies. But it can barely afford them, given Kenya’s huge debt to external lenders like China.No matter who wins this election, economists say, they will face harsh economic headwinds.William Ruto, the current vice president who is making a run for the top job, greeting supporters on Tuesday after voting in Sugoi, about 200 miles northwest of Nairobi.Brian Inganga/Associated PressThe critical question in the coming days, however, is not only who won the race, but whether the loser will accept defeat.It can get murky.Days before the last vote, in 2017, a senior electoral official, Chris Msando, was brutally murdered, his tortured body dumped in a forest outside Nairobi alongside his girlfriend, Carol Ngumbu. A post-mortem found they had been strangled.The death of Mr. Msando, who was in charge of the results transmission system, immediately aroused suspicion of a link to vote rigging. Weeks later when Mr. Odinga challenged the election result in court, he claimed that the electoral commission’s server had been hacked by people using Mr. Msando’s credentials.The election was eventually rerun — Mr. Kenyatta won — but the killings were never solved.The nadir of Kenyan elections, though, came in 2007 when a dispute over results plunged the country into a maelstrom of ethnic violence that went on for months, killing over 1,200 people and, some analysts said, nearly tipped the country into an all-out civil war.In one notorious episode, a mob set fire to a church outside the town of Eldoret, burning to death the women, children and older people hiding inside.Maasai waiting to vote outside a polling station at Niserian Primary School, in Kajiado County, Kenya, on Tuesday.Ben Curtis/Associated PressThe trauma of those days still scars voters like Jane Njoki, who woke up on Tuesday in Nakuru, 100 miles northwest of Nairobi, with mixed feelings about casting her vote.Her family lost everything in 2007 after mobs of machete-wielding men descended on their town in the Rift Valley, torching their house and killing Ms. Njoki’s brother and uncle, she said. Since then, each election season has been a reminder of how her family held hasty funerals in case the attackers returned.“Elections are always trouble,” she said.That bloodshed drew the attention of the International Criminal Court which tried, unsuccessfully, to prosecute senior politicians including Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto on charges of inciting violence.But the crisis also led Kenyans to adopt a new constitution in 2010 that devolved some powers to the local level and helped stabilize a democracy that, for all its flaws, is today considered among the strongest in the region.Waiting to vote early in the morning at St. Stephen School in the informal settlement of Mathare in Nairobi, on Tuesday.Luis Tato/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Post-conflict societies rarely earn the right lessons, but I think Kenya did,” said Murithi Mutiga, Africa Program Director at the International Crisis Group. “It adopted a new constitution with a relatively independent judiciary that led to a more constrained presidency. The rest of the region could learn from it.”On Tuesday, unofficial results from the vote flowed in. The election commission posted tallies from polling stations to its website as they became available, allowing newspapers, political parties and other groups to compile the unofficial results.By midnight, the election commission website showed that 81 percent of 46,229 polling stations had submitted their results electronically. But those results had not been tabulated or verified against the paper originals, which analysts say could take a few days.The winning candidate needs over 50 percent of the vote, as well as one quarter of the vote in 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties. Failure to meet that bar means a runoff within 30 days.That could happen if a third candidate, George Wajackoyah — who is campaigning on a platform of marijuana legalization and, more unusually, the sale to China of hyena testicles, said to be of medicinal value — can convert his sliver of support into votes, denying the main candidates a majority.But the most likely outcome in the coming days, analysts say, is a court challenge.Any citizen or group can challenge the results at the Supreme Court within seven days. If the results are challenged, the court must deliver its decision within two weeks. If judges nullify the results, as they did in 2017, a fresh vote must be held within 60 days.In recent weeks, both Mr. Odinga and Mr. Ruto have accused the election commission and other state bodies of bias, apparently sowing the ground for a legal challenge — only, of course, if they lose.Both of the main candidates have previously been accused of using street power to influence elections.But most Kenyans desperately hope that the trauma of 2007 — or the grisly murder mystery of 2017 — are far behind them.Whatever happens in the coming days or weeks, many say they hope it will be resolved in the courts, not on the streets.Declan Walsh More