Over the New Year the United Kingdom watched with considerable concern the violence that followed the outcome of the Presidential Election in Kenya, whose President Mwai Kibaki claimed victory in an election most international observers believed he had lost.
Kenya became a British colony in 1920. My father served with the King’s African Rifles, and was on active service in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion of 1952-6.
I visited Kenya several times as a schoolboy and have happy memories of its sunshine, wide-open spaces and friendly people. My wife and I were in Mombassa on holiday this time last year, and Kenya’s tourist trade, based around its wildlife and uncrowded beaches, had been booming.
Today Kenya mourns the deaths of over 320 people in rioting and looting and Kenyans have reason to fear a civil war.
Since Independence in 1963 the United Kingdom has remained Kenya’s chief trading partner and its main financial donor. By African standards Kenya had stability and the potential, partly through its delightful climate and strong agricultural sector, to be a most prosperous nation. A new factor in Kenya’s importance to the West is the anarchy in the failed neighboring State of Somalia, where Al-Qaeda could gain a stronghold.
President Kibaki claimed to have defeated his opponent, Raila Odinga, by just 230,000 votes. Kenya’s population is 34 million. The former gets his support mainly from the strongest tribe, the Kikuyu, while the latter has the backing of the Luo tribe.
These two tribes are traditional enemies and since Independence there has never been a Luo President; the Luo feel this opportunity has been stolen from them in a rigged election.
Analysts thought the vote would be close. Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, the European Union’s chief observer, said the vote “tallying process lacks credibility” and the poll was “flawed”.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said there were “real concerns” over the allegations of ballot-rigging.
The Head of the Kenyan Electoral Commission withdrew his endorsement of the count after some members of the Commission had expressed publicly their concerns.
One particular result has received massive international publicity. In one constituency European Union observers saw officials count 50,145 votes for Kibaki. This figure had somehow climbed to 75,261 when the final results were announced. That really tells it all. Margins were increased in Kikuyu tribal areas. Another major reason for believing that the election had been fixed was that the electorate voted heavily against the ruling party’s parliamentary candidates.
President Kibaki now has only 30 MPs supporting him in the 210-seat Kenyan Parliament. The Vice-President was removed. Odinga’s party won 95 seats. The tide had been flowing strongly against President Kibaki.
In recent days Kenya has experienced the worst violence since Independence. At least 30 people were murdered when a mob torched a church where they had taken refuge.
At first, the Kenya Police seemed unable to restore law and order and many rioters and looters were shot. Gangs of men armed with machetes set up roadblocks on a main road out of Nairobi and individuals were pulled from their cars. Investors from abroad are having second thoughts over doing business in Kenya, the best developed country in East Africa.
Tourism contributes 14% of Kenya’s GDP and this is not the right moment to be a tourist there.
What can outsiders do to help? I believe a lot. The 53-strong Commonwealth (no longer the British Commonwealth) is the best international organization to give a lead working with the United Nations and the European Union.
The Commonwealth, which has its headquarters in Marlborough House, London, is a network for stability and democracy in our troubled world.
It will need to work closely with the African Union, which contains many of its members. President Kufuor of Ghana, Chairman of the African Union, flew into Kenya to encourage reconciliation amongst its political leaders — and found it hard going. The African Union is at present much involved in Darfur and with Zimbabwe.
We should look for a carefully planned response by the Commonwealth Leaders: this is just the sort of political crisis within a member state that the Commonwealth should be able to handle.
They should make it clear at once that they regard the manner in which President Kibaki retained power as unacceptable. Most foreign governments so far have not wished to endorse the election result.
Washington sent its congratulations to President Kibaki, an ally in the “War against Terrorism”, but then changed direction (What a failure for the American Ambassador in Nairobi!)
There will need to be a rerun of the presidential election under international monitoring.
It should be made clear to the president, in private, that targeted sanctions, full economic sanctions and the suspension of Kenya from the Commonwealth are all under consideration.
