The 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis was a violent political, economic, and humanitarian crisis in Kenya. The crisis erupted after incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the 2007 presidential election. Supporters of Kibaki's main opponent in that election, Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement, alleged electoral manipulation. This position was widely confirmed by international observers, as being perpetrated by both parties in the election. Even the head of the electoral commission himself confirmed that he did not know who had won the elections despite announcing the incumbent as president.
In part due to the ethnic and geographic diversity of Kenyan politics, no singular narrative can explain the reaction of opposition supporters to the announcement of Kibaki's swearing-in, which was done on December 30, 2007, at night. The opposition announced a mass protest against the official results, and the violence was largely stoked by the police. Raila Odinga encouraged supporters to engage in mass protests which he announced on local television and radio stations, most noticeably in Mombasa, Eldoret, Kericho, Kisumu, Nakuru and parts of Nairobi. Police shot hundreds of violent demonstrators, including a few in front of TV news cameras, causing more violence to erupt.
Targeted ethnic violence (as opposed to violent protests) escalated and at first was directed mainly against Kikuyu people—the community of which Kibaki is a member—living outside their traditional settlement areas, especially in the Rift Valley Province.Samir Elhawary (2008) Crisis in Kenya: land, displacement and the search for 'durable solutions' Overseas Development Institute The violence started with the murder of over 50 unarmed women and children, some as young as a month old, by locking them in a church and burning them alive in Kiambaa village in the outskirts of Eldoret Town, on New Year's Day. Tribal tensions in the Rift Valley region had resulted in violence in several previous Kenyan elections, most notably in the 1992 Kenyan Elections. This issue prompted Kikuyu Politicians and Businessmen to mobilise their youth popularly known as Mungiki to start killing Luos.
In Mombasa, the Kenyan coastal residents took to the streets to protest the electoral manipulations and support their preferred candidate. Tensions rose as the landless indigenous Coastal communities felt this was a time to avenge the grabbing of their land by mainly up-country Kikuyu. Looters also struck a number of stores in Mombasa. The slums of Nairobi saw some of the worst violence, some of it ethnically motivated, some expression of outrage at extreme poverty, and some the actions of criminal gangs. The violence continued sporadically for several months, particularly in the Rift Valley.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan arrived in the country about a month after the election and successfully brought the two sides to the negotiating table. On February 28, 2008, Kibaki and Odinga signed a power-sharing agreement called the National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008, which established the office of the Prime Minister and created a coalition government. The power-sharing Cabinet, headed by Odinga as Prime Minister, was eventually named on April 13, after lengthy negotiations over its composition;"Kenya unveils 40-seat cabinet" , Al Jazeera, April 13, 2008. it was sworn in on April 17."Odinga sworn in as Kenya PM" , Al Jazeera, April 17, 2008.
Background
The post-election demonstration and violence stemmed from a mixture of motives. Some included:
Voting in elections has widely been along ethnic lines in many Kenyan communities Widespread perception that the count of the presidential election was modified in favour of Kibaki During colonial times Kikuyu people were displaced from their fertile highlands and after independence they were settled outside their traditional areas especially in the Rift Valley, where the ethnic Maasai people had populated originally before Kenya's colonization by the British. A belief among members of several other tribes that the Kikuyu community in Kenya has dominated the country's political leadership since independence"Information Bulletin; Kenya: Ethnic Clashes", Kenyan Red Cross Society, July 25, 2007.
Reports by international observers about manipulations and admissions by members of the Electoral Commission of Kenya that their staff provided them with incorrect figures have further fuelled this anger. The violence was directed mainly against Kikuyus, belonging to the same ethnic group as Kibaki.
The violence against Kikuyus occurred all over the country but was higher in areas like the Nairobi slums, Nyanza Province, the Rift Valley, and the Coast, where opposition against Kibaki was particularly strong. The ethnically diverse Nairobi slums have also seen violence by Kikuyu-dominated groups—amongst them the infamous Mungiki—against neighbours hailing from western parts of Kenya.
Timeline
A BBC reporter saw 40 bodies with gunshot wounds in a mortuary in Kisumu, which was the opposition's main base. A witness also told them that armed police shot protesters at a rally. There were running battles in the Nairobi slums. The local KTN television station said that 124 people died nationwide in the first two days of unrest.
On December 31, 2007, police reported that 40 people were killed in Nairobi and 53 in Kisumu, a major support base for Odinga. Four bodies were discovered in Mathare, in Nairobi, seven people were killed in Nakuru, and four people found dead in a village near Kapsabet."Election riots worsen in Kenya" , Al Jazeera, December 31, 2007.
Disputed results
Early results tallied indicated that Odinga held a strong lead on December 28, the day after the election, and the ODM declared victory for Odinga on December 29;"Kenya opposition declares victory", AFP (IOL), December 29, 2007. however, as more results were announced on the same day, the gap between the two candidates narrowed, and with almost 90% of the votes counted (180 out of 210 constituencies), Odinga's lead shrank to only 38,000 votes."Kenya election results expected today", SABC News, December 30, 2007. At a press conference on the morning of December 30, Raila Amolo Odinga accused the government of fraud, urged Emilio Mwai Kibaki to concede defeat, and called for a recount. He said that the Orange Democratic Party would not take the matter to the courts claiming that the courts were controlled by Emilio Mwai Kibaki.Stephen Ndegwa, "Kenya: Raila Calls for Vote Recount" , The East African Standard (allAfrica.com), December 30, 2007. The Electoral Commission declared Kibaki the winner on December 30, placing him ahead of Odinga by about 232,000 votes.Barney Jopson, "Kenyan police try to block opposition rally" , Reuters (Financial Times), January 3, 2008. According to Odinga, as many as 300,000 votes for Kibaki were falsely included in his total. The Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said that while irregularities affecting the entire exercise did occur, they were a matter for the courts, not the Electoral Commission.Jeffrey Gettleman, "Tribal violence breaks out in Kenya over disputed election result" , International Herald Tribune, December 30, 2007. Supporters of Kibaki, meanwhile, said that discrepancies had actually worked in Odinga's favor, arguing that discrepancies between polling station tallies and Electoral Commission results meant that Odinga had gained 53,000 votes while Kibaki had lost 106,000. Following the commission's declaration of his victory, Kibaki was promptly sworn in for his second term late in the evening on the same day, calling for the "verdict of the people" to be respected and for "healing and reconciliation" to begin.
Kivuitu said that there were some problems in the vote counting, noting that in one constituency the reported turnout rate was 115%. According to the European Union's head observer in the election, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, the election was "flawed" and the Electoral Commission failed to establish "the credibility of the tallying process to the satisfaction of all parties and candidates";"Kibaki re-elected as president of Kenya" , Reuters (Financial Times), December 30, 2008. he said that in some places EU observers were not allowed to see vote tallies until the Electoral Commission announced them: "the whole point...is to verify that the results are the same". The United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said that his country had "real concerns" about the election. While the United States initially congratulated Kibaki and called for the results to be respected, it also expressed concern, and on January 2, 2008, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department declined to confirm U.S. recognition of Kibaki's victory.David Gollust, "US in Diplomatic Push to End Kenya Violence" , VOA News, January 2, 2007. In a telex from then US Embassy in Nairobi to the State Department in Washington DC [released in July 2012], US Ambassador Michael Ranneberger set out five scenarios as to who really won the election. He wrote, 'In all cases the margin of victory for either side is slim and ultimately unknowable'. The telex also noted that there was 'evidence of rigging on both sides' and Kivuitu said on January 2, that he had been pressured by PNU and ODM-K (Kibaki's and Kalonzo Musyoka's parties) into announcing the results without delay, and he claimed that he did not personally know who really won.
Within minutes of the commission's declaration of Kibaki as victor, tribe-based rioting and violence, primarily directed against Kikuyus, broke out across Kenya, and the government suspended live television coverage for some days.The Nation, "Kenya: Violence Erupts After Kibaki Sworn in" , The Nation (allafrica.com), December 30, 2007.The Nation, "Kenya: Death and Chaos After Kibaki Win" , The Nation (allafrica.com), December 31, 2007. Odinga alleged that "a clique of people around Kibaki" sought to rig the election, but said that democracy "is unstoppable like the flow of the Nile". The ODM announced its intention to hold a ceremony on December 31, in which Odinga would be declared the "people's president", but police said that this could incite violence and that Odinga could be arrested if the ceremony occurred. Odinga then delayed this, but called for a million-strong rally on January 3, 2008 and for his supporters to wear black armbands as a show of mourning.
Odinga said that the ODM would not negotiate with Kibaki unless he resigned, because to do so would, according to Odinga, mean acknowledging Kibaki's legitimacy; he also said that, unless stopped, the "ruling clique" could rig the next election in five years as well, and that he was not afraid of being arrested, having been jailed many times in the past."Raila's terms for talks with Kibaki on crisis", Daily Nation (Kenya), January 1, 2008. For his part, Kibaki emphasized the importance of peace, stability, and tolerance in his 2008 New Year's message, speaking of the election as a concluded event and warning that law-breakers would be punished.Fred Mukinda and Samwel Kumba, "Kibaki warns law breakers of stern action", Daily Nation (Kenya), January 1, 2008.
Rallies
Odinga said that the million-strong rally in his support planned for January 3 would take place in spite of a government ban, and he accused the government of being directly responsible for "genocide". Electoral Commission Chairman Kivuitu said on January 1, that he had been pressured by the PNU and ODM-Kenya to announce results immediately, despite the urgings of Western ambassadors to delay the results so that concerns about irregularities could be addressed.