Kenya Violence
Violence has tarnished elections in Kenya with 2007 Post-Election Violence being the bloodiest on record to date.
Kenya's presidential elections have been marked with some type of violence and protests, and the 2007 vote was best known for murder and mayhem along ethnic lines.
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10-13-2017
Violence has tarnished elections in Kenya with 2007 Post-Election Violence being the bloodiest on record.
The Issue
Kenya’s President
Daniel Toroitich arap Moi stepped down in December 2002 after serving 24 years
from 1978-2002 following fair and peaceful elections. Mwai Kibaki, running as
the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow
Coalition (NARC), defeated Kenya African National Union (KANU) candidate Uhuru Kenyatta,
the son of founding president Jomo Kenyatta, and assumed the presidency.
However,
Kibaki's reelection in December 2007 brought charges of voter fraud from Orange
Democratic Movement (ODM) candidate Raila Odinga and let loose two months of
violence where over 1,000 people died and left over 300,000 people displaced.
The Mediation
Former
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan spearheaded the peace mediation directed by the
African Union 0n January 22, 2008. The 41-day mediation peace talks began three
weeks after the Post-Election violence erupted across Kenya, also included former
President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, and former South African First Lady Graça
Machel and Nigerian Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji.
On
February 28, 2008, after six weeks of intense negotiations between the
opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the Government of Kenya’s Party
of National Unity (GoK/PNU), Kofi Annan, said farewell to Kenya a few days
later on March 3rd. But this was only the beginning of an even longer and more
difficult road ahead toward sustainable peace in Kenya.
The technical elements were
left in the hands of Attorney-General Amos Wako and a team of lawyers whose job
it was to draft the necessary bills for the implementation of the power-sharing
agreement into law.
The peace
mediation continued over the root causes of the crisis left in the hands of
Nigerian Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji, who was tasked with addressing the
land issue, historical injustices, the cycles of dispossession, and the steps
needed to move toward reconciliation.
The Solution
The
Agreement on the Principles of Partnership of the Coalition Government, was
signed by President Mwai Kibaki and the Honorable Raila Odinga on February
28th, putting an end to the crisis.
The
Agreement on the Principles of Partnership of the Coalition Government
agreement is built on the principles of power sharing. Parties agreed to enact
the 2008 National Accord and Reconciliation Act, specifying principles
concerning the authority of the prime minister, coalition members, cabinet, and
parliament.
The
chief mediator Kofi Annan, stated "a crisis presents us with both danger
and opportunity. On the one hand, the danger was that this East African nation,
previously perceived as an island of political and economic stability and an essential
hub for international activity, would allow the election crisis of 2007 to deteriorate
into a catastrophic civil war along ethnic lines.
As messages of hate penetrated the radio
waves and a church full of fleeing women and children went up in flames, the
echoes of Rwanda and Côte d'Ivoire made this danger a very real one.
The
opportunity, on the other hand, was that the crisis could be used to actually
address deeply rooted problems: the simmering grievances, repeated ethnic
migrations, and the cycles of dispossession which have characterized Kenya’s colonial
and postcolonial years.
This was indeed an opportunity to create a political
system which could attempt to address the vast disparities in wealth and the
endemic sense of marginalization."
