Eyes on Kenya

President Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga Thursday signed a deal that will see them share power through the creation of a Prime Minister position.

The deal, brokered by Africa Union chairman President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and Mr Kofi Annan, will see the creation of a grand coalition sharing power according to party strength in Parliament.

The deal provides that the PM will coordinate and supervise Ministers, while Cabinet positions will be shared proportionally according to party strength in Parliament.

The President will have the authority to sack Cabinet members, but only with written agreement from leaders of the respective coalition party.

The Cabinet will comprise the President, the Vice-President, the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Ministers and Ministers.

The coalition will collapse at the end of the current Parliament, or if the parties so agree, or if one partner withdraws.

The signing at Nairobi’s Harambee House was witnessed by diplomats and broadcast live on national television.

President Kibaki and Mr Odinga first signed the agreement, then President Kikwete and Mr Annan appended their signatures as witnesses.

The agreement was the result of a five-hour meeting chaired by President Kikwete involving Mr Annan, President Kibaki and Raila Odinga.

And this is how Kofi Anan explains the deal:

But let us not forget, how it sounded just some days ago:

Still, the coalition depends on the good will of the protagonists. It is a deal between Odinga and Kibaki, but there are many more characters who want their share of the deal. As soon as there is no Kofi Anan in Kenya anymore, the Coalition will become fragile. It all depends how much issues will be dealt with in next weeks before it comes into a standstill.

Many articles in the Kenyan “blogosphere” (see chart below), local and international media have been written about the post-election crisis. The numbers reach into their thousands. This article tries to give an overview about good articles with background information on Kenya and the current political crisis. It is just a selection and we are sure that we may have missed many good ones. It is just the beginning and we will try to keep it updated, so if you see any good ones that would fit into this page, please use the comment function to add them.

(Topics in alphabetical order)

Constitution

The Draft Constitution of Kenya, known as the Boma’s draft, was adopted by the National Constitutional Conference on 15th of march 2004.

Economy
“The potential impact of economic sanctions on the Kenyan government” takes a closer look at the Kenyan economy and delivers useful statistics and numbers.

The Reuter’s fact box gives an overview about the “Aid to Kenya”, the CIA fact book delivers more economic figures.

“Eyes on the World Bank and Kibaki’s economy” takes a closer look at the economic program of Kibaki’s government and at the World Bank’s interest in Kenya.

Ethnic Violence

Antony Otieno Ong’ayo, a researcher at the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, gives “An overview of the underlying factors” of “The Post-election Violence in Kenya” at Pambazuka News. It is detailed and gives a great historic overview as well .

“Unearthing of the sources of tribal disagreements and ethno-politics in Kenya” takes a closer look at the historic background of tribalism in Kenya.

The US biased NGO Human Rights Watch published a report about the involvement of opposition politicians in the preparation of the Rift valley violence. “Kenya: Opposition Officials Helped Plan Rift Valley Violence” was published on January 24th 2008.

Health
The article “The effect of the Kenyan crisis on Kenya’s health system” tries to summarize the struggles to keep up the Kenyan health system in this time of crisis. It also refers to an article by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs IRIN “KENYA: Healthcare threatened by political crisis”

International Medical Corps addresses the issue “Risk of Long-Term Food Insecurity and Malnutrition” in Kenya.

Land distribution

The Africa Policy Institute published a report by Horace Njuguna Gisemba named “The Lie of the land: Evictions and Kenya’s crisis”. It takes a closer look at the history of land distribution and ownership in the Rift valley and disputes the often heard argument of “land distribution” as the underlying cause for the killings. It is controversally discussed at the Kenya imagine.

Media

Reuter’s alertnet posted an article by Joanne Tomkinson called “MEDIAWATCH: Kenyan media inciting ethnic hatred” on Februray 7th 2008. It deals with the local radio stations promoting ethnic hatred.

Humanitarian news and analysis (IRIN) also writes about “Spreading the word of hate” .

John Barbieri, an independent reporter and the founder of the US Coalition for Peace with Truth and Justice in Kenya writes about the “The poverty of international journalism”.

Simiyu Barasa, a member of the Coalition of Concerned Kenyan Writers, wrote an essay on “War journalism: Kenya’s newest tourist attraction” on the kwani blog. Barasa picks up the concept of “peace journalism” by the Norwegian Scholar John Galtun and shows how the local media tries to use their influence to promote peace and fails due to an international “war journalism”. He gives examples how cameras create stories and that media attention is only drawn by violence. This is done by the very same media cooperation which thought it was their responsibility not to show any cruel pictures after 9/11 and during the Iraq war.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Association of East Africa (FCAEA) strongly condemned the violation of press freedoms and intimidation of journalists on January 19t.

Political Parties
The Mukoma Wa Ngugi analysis on the differences within the Orange Democratic Movement and the different political approaches by its leaders. “Understanding the Kenyan Opposition” brings to light the differences between the activist-intellectual left, the Moi-ist retrogressives, and the populists within the party.

“Eyes on Kenyan Political Parties: A call for change” looks at the historic background of Kenya’s Parties and the lack of their political profiles.

In the publication “Political Succession in East Africa – In Search for a Limited Leadership” by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Dr. Katumanga Musambayi wrote the chapter: “After the floods – The Rainbow: Contextualising NARC’s election victory – Lessons learnt and the challenges ahead”. It was published in 2006 and gives an overview about the prior election in 2002.

Power-sharing

The full text of the power-sharing deal was signed by Kibaki and Odinga on February 28th 2008.

Religion
Despite the fact that the different religious communities play an important role in Kenya's society, we have not found any deeper analysis on the role of the churches to promote peace and their role in finding a conflict solution.

United States of America

Here we are still looking for a good article, that analyses the change in the US policies towards the Kibaki government.

Our early analysis on the “The role of the US Department of State in the aftermath of Kenyan Election” sees a change in US policies as the results of a learning process due to the mistakes made in the 2005 Ethiopian election.

Patrick Mutahi asks the Question”What is America's stake in this?” and explains their interest according to their “war on terror” policies.

Women's rights
The “Women’s Memorandum to the Mediation Team” was published on Pambazuka News. It was written by the “Kenyan Women's Consultation Group on the Current Crisis in Kenya” a group of women from various backgrounds who met to discuss a solution to the crisis. Among other important points it stresses the importance of women participation in the finding of conflict solutions adhereing to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325.

"Violence and women in Kenya" portraits the Kenyans Prof. Wangari Maathai, Dekha Ibrahim Abdi and Gladwell Otieno and takes a closer look at violence against female candidates in the pre-election period.

Again: If you know other background articles on the current situation in Kenya, please use the comment function or the "Contact Page" to add them. If you leave a comment you have the option to be notified for any further comments.

Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga had a surprise visitor this week — a high-ranking politician from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grand coalition.

Gernot Erler, Germany’s deputy foreign minister, was secretly flown into Kenya at the request of Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General who is mediating between Kenya’s warring factions to resolve a crisis sparked by Kibaki’s disputed re-election last December.

Annan had turned to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to ask for an expert to assist in talks between Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) and Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). Steinmeier entrusted the job to Erler.

Gernod Erler

Erler’s task was to explain the workings of Merkel’s grand coalition between her center-right Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, of which the minister is a member.

My visit was a surprise to all,” Erler told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung on the last day of his mission. “But then everyone was really interested and had a lot of questions.”

Erler said his job was to explain the complicated arithmetic underlying the power-sharing model in Germany and how such a consensus-based system worked. Germany’s grand coalition came into being after federal elections in 2005, ending two months of political uncertainty after Merkel’s conservatives won a wafer-thin majority.

“My job was to present the model so that the Kenyans can see if a similar system could work for them,” Erler said. The minister had also brought along an English version of Germany’s coalition agreement with him so that the Kenyans could spend time studying it.

The German Coalition

Of course, it is hard to find similarities between the Kenyan crisis today and the post election situation in Germany in 2005. With more than 1000 lost lives lost and more than 300.000 displaced persons, the gaps to over come are tremendous.

Still, in order to look for a conflict solution it is worth to look at the concept of a “grand coalition”, when it makes sense to and whether it lasts.

A “grand coalition” is usually not the preferred model in a parliamentary democracy. The only exception for many years is the oldest democracy in the world: Switzerland. Here, government positions were distributed according to the seats in the Parliament. It worked because of a unique democratic culture, in which the will of power-sharing and consensus decisions are high valued. The position of the head of government was rotated among the ministers. The system worked only as long as Politicians respected certain rules and it failed when the eccentric right wing populist billionaire Blocher broke the political consensus by campaigning with a brutal anti-Immigrants campaign. He crossed the line and forced the other Parties to unite against him. It showed how much the system was depending on the acceptance of democratic rules by Politicians.

The 2005 German general election ended up in a Parliamentary “deadlock” situation. The ruling coalition of chancellor Schröder’s SPD and the Grüne Party lost their majority. But Merkel’s CDU/CSU did not reach more than 50% together with their preferred partner FDP. The 614 seats of Parliament were distributed as follows: SPD 222, CDU 180, CSU 46, Grüne 51, FDP 61 and the Linke 54.

Right after the election both Merkel and Schröder claimed to have the mandate to form the government. Schröder claimed to be the head of the biggest Party in Parliament. Since CDU and CSU are partners, Merkel had was head of the biggest Party group (The CSU is a Bavarian tribalist version of the CDU).

The preliminary condition for the German grand coalition to work was that one had to step down from this position. It was for sure that chancellor Schröder would not take any other position in the government than that of Chancellor and the CDU/CSU would have never accepted a non CDU/CSU chancellor. In order to start negotiations SPD had to call upon Schröder to resign.

Another factor was Angela Merkel. She was much more accepted by the SPD as a chancellor of grand coalition than some other CDU/CSU politicians. Edmund Stoiber, who ran in the previous election for CDU/CSU would have not been accepted by the SPD.

“It is a Grand Coaltion, if it does not move in any direction .” (c) suika

Both Parties are currently not happy about the situation. Every controversial issue, every local election becomes a test how much the coalition can take. Even though the government has a comfortable majority in both Parliament houses, great changes have not been made and issues like the reform of the health system have not been toughed. Both partners announced they do not want to continue the coalition after the next general election.

A German like “grand coalition” is not a good solution, but sometimes may be the only possibility. It works only if both partners step down from radical positions and verbal attacks. It cannot be a solution for a long period and most important is that the crucial changes are made immediately.

One lesson might be learned from another German “grand coalition”. In 1968 protest grew against the SPD/CDU/CSU coalition and ended up in a the formation of the “Out of Parliament opposition” and the growth of a political civil society. This is something that might help the Kenyan political development as well.

In Berlin, Germany there will be two discussion and information events about the current political crisis in Kenya.

The first one is organized by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, a political foundation associated with the party “die Grünen”. Guests are the journalist Marc Engelhardt (taz, Berliner Zeitung) and Dr. Gero Erdmann from GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Institute of African Affairs, Hamburg.

It will take place at the Heinich Böll foundation, Rosenthaler Str. 40/41, Hackesche Höfe on Februrary 20th 2008. It will be held in German.

The second event will be hosted by the Society for International Development -Berlin Chapter and it will take place at the “Afrika-Haus”. It is supported by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a political foundation associated with the ruling party CDU. Invited are Ralph-Michael Peters, political expert of the Core team of the EU election observing mission in Kenya 2007 and former member of the GIGA research group “Democratisation and Civil society in Kenya”, Gideon Ochanda Ogolla, Program Officer of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation in Kenya and National Coordinator of the Institute for Civic Affairs and Development – ICAD, Nairobi and Kerstin Müller, MP and State-Secretary of the German foreign ministry. It will be held in English on the 28^th of Februrary 2008.

(more…)

The following analysis is a four-part series about the involvement, perception, actions, and reactions of the international community with special reference to the West, regarding elections in Africa.

Part 1 covers Malawi, a critique and analysis of the present situation and the up-coming 2009 elections and raises the question about international involvement in elections of a sovereign state.

Part 2 covers the 2005 general elections in Ethiopia and its aftermath.

Part 3 covers an analysis of the 2006 elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the involvement of the international community.

Part 4 looks at Uganda and gives a conclusive analysis of the role, perception, actions, involvement and reactions of the international community in general towards election in Africa.

Part 1: Malawi

According to the Nyasa Times Blog (also quoted by the quite reliable Kenyan Jurist blog), Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika has praised Kenya’s “President” Mwai Kibaki and insinuated at Malawi’s opposition parties promising to apply what he described “Kibaki tactics” during the 2009 general elections in order to hold on to power.

A source who attended Mutharika’s New Years party organised for his relatives and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials at Sanjika Palace on Monday, heard the President talking to Minister for Presidential and Parliamentary Affairs, Davis Katsonga and acting DPP Secretary General, Hetherwick Ntaba.

“After getting sloshed, the President was loudly heard telling [Davis] Katsonga and [Hetherwick] Ntaba that he is resigned to do ‘a Kibaki’ in 2009 polls,” said our source, opting for anonymity.

Since the source remains anonymous it is not possible to verify the information. But whether this is true or not, looking at the upcoming election in Malawi, we have express our concern about how democratic this election will be.

Bingu wa Mutharika during the genral elections 2004 (c) AP from bbc

President Bingu wa Mutharika chose Malawi Electoral Commissioners – charged with the task of holding a free and fair 2009 general elections – without consultations with the opposition parties, a move aimed at having commissioners who can easily be twisted by his orders.

The opposition Malawi Congress Party [MCP] and United Democratic Front [UDF] cried foul and obtained an injunction restraining Mutharika from swearing in the commissioners for clearly breaching a constitutional provision.

The High Court Judge Healey Potani is yet to pass a ruling on the matter.

If the High Court allows the President to proceed, Malawi is facing a similar situation like Kenya where the Electoral Commission was also hand-picked by the government and opposition already questioning a fair election before people cue to vote.

We all witnessed what happened after the the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya Samuel Kivuitu announced a result that even he knew was not based on the vote of the people. And we cannot be hypocritically surprised if Malawi runs into a crisis.

To do a Kibaki

Of course, foreign institutions and governments have little rights to tell a sovereign state how to run their internal affairs. This is a sensitive issue, especially in a (post-)colonial context. But considering aid sanctions as justified in the case of Kenya, we have to ask the question about when to react to pull such sanctions.

It should be possible to openly address such issues between democratic partner nations. Unfortunately, there have been many cases in which industrial nations and International organisations have dealt with “Democratic” elections in a hypocritical way.

Lets look at some of the many examples of reactions to recent elections in Africa:

Part 2 covers the 2005 general elections in Ethiopia and its aftermath.

Shocked by the events following the Kenyan elections, we felt the urge to contribute to the struggle for Peace and Democracy in Kenya. We hope to collect as many information as possible, connect people, organize protest and break the government censorship. Please help us and get in touch with us, correct us if we are wrong, comment and add news.