How 2007 polls paved way for cases at The Hague

By FRANCIS NGIGE

KENYA: A hotly contested presidential election in December 2007 between then President Mwai Kibaki and his main challenger Raila Odinga ended in a stalemate that degenerated into an orgy of violence.

Kenyans had turned out in large numbers to participate in the democratic process of electing their leaders and they did so peacefully.

In the run-up to the election, however, the campaign was a divisive one and politicians across the board openly campaigned using hate speech. The division stemmed from the November 2005 constitutional referendum, in which the government was humiliated.

All was well on election day, with Kenyans turning up in large numbers to cast their votes. It was not until three days later that something unprecedented happened.

With the casting of votes complete and counting taking place at an exceptionally slow pace, tension was palpable across the country.

The delay by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) to announce the presidential result caused anxiety, with fears rising that the election was being rigged. Things worsened when the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was announced the winner.

Different room

The previous day, ODM presidential candidate Raila Odinga was leading the presidential race with a gap of nearly a million votes and his supporters believed he was headed for victory.

As the day progressed, however, Kibaki narrowed the gap much to the chagrin of ODM supporters, who accused the electoral commission of tampering with results to deny their candidate a win.

With rigging allegations flying all around, the then ECK chairman, the late Samuel Kivuitu, expressed disgust over the delay by some returning officers in submitting presidential results.

At one point, the outspoken Kivuitu exasperatedly remarked: “I cannot get some of these returning officers on phone. I don’t know where they are; or they are cooking results?”

Politicians across the political divide exchanged words in the event that was beamed live on all televisions stations. All hell broke loose, however, when Kivuitu retreated to a different room within KICC to announce that Kibaki had emerged victorious.

He was later to be seen at State House Nairobi at dusk handing over the certificate to Kibaki, who was swiftly sworn in.

Spontaneous violence ignited by allegations of election fraud spread fast across the country with Nairobi, Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western being the worst affected. People were killed indiscriminately, others were uprooted from their homes, with the assailants burning down houses and destroying other property.