The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) has been present in Kenya since 14 November 2007 following an invitation from the Government of the Republic of Kenya and the Electoral Commission of Kenya. The EU EOM is led by Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Member of the European Parliament. The EU EOM deployed 152 observers from 26 EU Member States and Norway. The observers were deployed throughout Kenya to observe and assess the electoral process in accordance with international and regional standards for elections. The EU EOM was joined by a four member delegation from the European Parliament, led by Jan Mulder, Member of the European Parliament, which endorses this preliminary statement. On election day, observers visited 752 polling stationsin all the Provinces of Kenya to observe voting, counting and the tabulation of results. The EU EOM will remain in country to observe post-election developments. This statement is preliminary; a final report including recommendations for future elections will be published in February 2008. The EU EOM is independent in its findings and conclusions.
Friday, January 11, 2008
The The EU Election Observor Mission report on the rigged Election
ODM's report on the rigging of the 2007 General election
Here is the copy of the detailed report from the ODM secretariat on the rigging of the Kenyan General election of 2007 by the civilian junta of the rigger-in-chief Mwai Kibaki. View report
An Open Letter to SAMUEL KIVUITU, Chairman of Electoral Commission of Kenya
An Open Letter to SAMUEL KIVUITU, Chairman of Electoral Commission of Kenya
GUEST POSTDear Mr. Kivuitu,
We've never met. It's unlikely we ever will. But, like every other Kenyan, I will remember you for the rest of my life. The nausea I feel at the mention of your name may recede. The bitterness and grief will not.
You had a mandate, Mr. Kivuitu. To deliver a free, fair and transparent election to the people of Kenya. You and your commission had 5 years to prepare. You had a tremendous pool of resources, skills, technical support, to draw on, including the experience and advice of your peers in the field - leaders and experts in governance, human rights, electoral process and constitutional law. You had the trust of 37 million Kenyans!
We believed it was going to happen. On December 27th, a record 65% of registered Kenyan voters rose as early as 4am to vote. Stood in lines for up to 10 hours, in the sun, without food, drink, toilet facilities. As the results came in, we cheered when minister after powerful minister lost their parliamentary seats. When the voters of Rift Valley categorically rejected the three sons of Daniel Arap Moi, the despot who looted Kenya for 24 years. The country spoke through the ballot, en masse, against the mindblowing greed, corruption, human rights abuses, callous dismissal of Kenya's poor, that have characterised the Kibaki administration.
But Kibaki wasn't going to go. When it became clear that you were announcing vote tallies that differed from those counted and confirmed in the constituencies, there was a sudden power blackout at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, where the returns were being announced. Hundreds of GSU (General Service Unit) paramilitaries suddenly marched in. Ejected all media except the government mouthpiece Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.
Fifteen minutes later, we watched, dumbfounded, as you declared Kibaki the winner. 30 minutes later, we watched in sickened disbelief and outrage, as you handed the announcement to Kibaki on the lawns of State House. Where the Chief Justice, strangely enough, had already arrived. Was waiting, fully robed, to hurriedly swear him in.
You betrayed us. Perhaps we'll never know when, or why, you made that decision. One rumor claims you were threatened with the execution of your entire family if you did not name Kibaki as presidential victor. When I heard it, I hoped it was true. Because at least then I could understand why you chose instead to plunge our country into civil war.
I don't believe that rumor any more. Not since you appeared on TV, looking tormented, sounding confused, contradicting yourself. Saying, among other things, that you did not resign because you "did not want the country to call me a coward", but you "cannot state with certainty that Kibaki won the election". Following that with the baffling statement "there are those around him [Kibaki] who should never have been born." The camera operator had a sense of irony - the camera shifted several times to the scroll on your wall that read: "Help Me, Jesus."
As the Kenya Chapter of the International Commission of Jurists rescinds the Jurist of the Year award they bestowed on you, as the Law Society of Kenya strikes you from their Roll of Honour and disbars you, I wonder what goes through your mind these days.
Do you think of the 300,000 Kenyans displaced from their homes, their lives? Of the thousands still trapped in police stations, churches, any refuge they can find, across the country? Without food, water, toilets, blankets? Of fields ready for harvest, razed to the ground? Of granaries filled with rotting grain, because no one can get to them? Of the Nairobi slum residents of Kibera, Mathare, Huruma, Dandora, ringed by GSU and police, denied exit, or access to medical treatment and emergency relief, for the crime of being poor in Kenya?
I bet you haven't made it to Jamhuri Park yet. But I'm sure you saw the news pictures of poor Americans, packed like battery chickens into their stadiums, when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Imagine that here in Nairobi, Mr. Kivuitu. 75,000 Kenyans, crammed into a giant makeshift refugee camp. Our own Hurricane Kivuitu-Kibaki, driven by fire, rather than floods. By organized militia rather than crumbling levees. But the same root cause - the deep, colossal contempt of a tiny ruling class for the rest of humanity. Over 60% of our internal refugees are children. The human collateral damage of your decision!
And now, imagine grief, Mr. Kivuitu. Grief so fierce, so deep, it shreds the muscle fibres of your heart. Violation so terrible, it grinds down the very organs of your body, forces the remnants through your kidneys, for you to piss out in red water. Multiply that feeling by every Kenyan who has watched a loved one slashed to death in the past week. Every parent whose child lies, killed by police bullets, in the mortuaries of Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret. Everyone who has run sobbing from a burning home or church, hearing the screams of those left behind. Every woman, girl, gang-raped.
Do you sleep well these days, Mr. Kivuitu? I don't. I have nightmares. I wake with my heart pounding, slow tears trickling from the corners of my eyes, random phrases running through my head:
Remember how we felt in 2002? It's all gone. (Muthoni Wanyeki, ED of Kenya Human Rights Commission, on the night of December 30th, 2007, after Kibaki was illegally sworn in as president).
There is a crime here that goes beyond recrimination. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolise. (John Steinbeck, American writer, on the betrayal of internally displaced Americans, in The Grapes of Wrath)
Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi....kila siku tuwe na shukrani ("Justice be our shield and defender....every day filled with thanksgiving" (Lines from Kenya's national anthem)
I soothe myself back to patchy sleep with my mantra in these terrible days, as our country burns and disintegrates around us:
Courage. Courage comes. Courage comes from cultivating. Courage comes from cultivating the habit. Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing. Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions. (Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner).
I wake with a sense of unbearable sadness. Please let it not be true.....
Meanwhile, the man you named President cowers in the State House, surrounded by a cabal of hardline power brokers, and a bevy of sycophantic unseated Ministers and MPs, who jostle for position and succession. Who fuel the fires by any means they can, to keep themselves important, powerful, necessary. The smoke continues to rise from the torched swathes of Rift Valley, the gutted city of Kisumu, the slums of Nairobi and Mombasa. The Red Cross warns of an imminent cholera epidemic in Nyanza and Western Kenya, deprived for days now of electricity and water. Containers pile up at the Port of Mombasa, as ships, unable to unload cargo, leave still loaded. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan, the DRC, all dependent on Kenyan transit for fuel and vital supplies, grind to a halt.
A repressive regime rolls out its panoply of oppression against legitimate dissent. Who knew our police force had so many sleek, muscled, excellently-trained horses, to mow down protestors? Who guessed that in a city of perennial water shortages, we had high-powered water cannons to terrorize Kenyans off the streets?
I am among the most fortunate of the fortunate. Not only am I still whole, alive, healthy, mobile; not only do I have food, shelter, transport, the safety of those I love; I have the gift of work. I have the privilege to be in the company of the most brilliant, principled, brave, resilient Kenyans of my generation. To contribute whatever I can as we organize, strategize, mobilize, draw on everything we know and can do, to save our country. I marvel at the sheer collective volume of trained intelligence, of skill, expertise, experience, in our meetings. At the ability to rise above personal tragedy - families still hostage in war zones, friends killed, homes overflowing with displaced relatives - to focus on the larger picture and envisage a solution. I listen to lawyers, economists, youth activists, humanitarians; experts on conflict, human rights, governance, disaster relief; to Kenyans across every sector and ethnicity, and I think:
Is this what we have trained all our lives for? To confront this epic catastrophe, caused by a group of old men who have already sucked everything they possibly can out of Kenya, yet will cling until they die to their absolute power?
You know these people too, Mr. Kivuitu. The principled, brave, resilient, brilliant Kenyans. The idealists who took seriously the words we sang as schoolchildren, about building the nation. Some of them worked closely with you, right through the election. Some called you friend. You don't even have the excuse that Kibaki, or his henchmen, might offer - that of inhabiting a world so removed from ours that they cannot fathom the reality of ordinary Kenyans. You know of the decades of struggle, bloodshed, faith and suffering that went into creating this fragile beautiful thing we called the "democratic space in Kenya." So you can imagine the ways in which we engage with the unimaginable. We coin new similes:
Lie low like a 16A (the electoral tally form returned by each constituency, many of which were altered or missing in the final count)
We joke about the Kivuitu effect - which turns internationalists, pan-Africanists, fervent advocates for the dissolution of borders, into nationalists who cry at the first verse of the national anthem .
Ee Mungu nguvu yetu Ilete baraka kwetu Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi Natukae na undugu Amani na uhuru Raha tupate na ustawi.
O God of all creation Bless this our land and nation Justice be our shield and defender May we dwell in unity Peace and liberty Plenty be found within our borders.
Rarely do we allow ourselves pauses, to absorb the enormity of our country shattered, in 7 days. We cry, I think, in private. At least I do. In public, we mourn through irony, persistent humor, and action. Through the exercise of patience, stamina, fortitude, generosity, that humble me to witness. Through the fierce relentless focus of our best energies towards challenges of stomach-churning magnitude. We tell the stories that aren't making it into the press: the retired general in Rift Valley sheltering 200 displaced families on his farm, the Muslim Medical Professionals offering free treatment to anyone injured in political protest. We challenge, over and over again, with increasing weariness, the international media coverage that presents this as "tribal warfare", "ethnic conflict", for an audience that visualises Africa through Hollywood: Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland, Blood Diamond.
I wish you'd thought of those people, when you made the choice to betray them. I wish you'd drawn on their courage, their integrity, their clarity, when your own failed you. I wish you'd had the imagination to enter into the lives, the dreams, of 37 million Kenyans.
But, as you've probably guessed by now, Mr. Kivuitu, this isn't really a letter to you at all. This is an attempt to put words to what cannot be expressed in words. To mourn what is too immense to mourn. A clumsy groping for something beyond the word 'heartbreak'. A futile attempt to communicate what can only be lived, moment by moment. This is a howl of anguish and rage. This is a love letter to a nation. This is a long low keening for my country.
Shailja Patel
Now Kivuitu disowns election results
Now Kivuitu disowns election results
By DAVID MUGONYI Nation (10 Jan 2007)
Last updated: 35 minutes ago
A new storm broke out over the presidential elections Thursday after polls boss Samuel Kivuitu disowned results published in the media by his office, saying he had not approved them.
And he blamed "outside forces" for making public the controversial presidential tallies, which appeared in three pages of paid-for advertising in Daily Nation and The Standard Thursday. "I did not submit this report or authorise my name to be used for its publication. The use of my name is a falsification," the besieged Electoral Commission chairman said in statement.
His complaint will once again raise questions over who really is in charge of the commission, which has been accused of doctoring presidential results in President Kibaki's favour and announcing figures different from those read out at the constituencies, plunging Kenya into a political crisis.
Mr Kivuitu has previously complained that individuals at ECK were still altering presidential tallies at the commission's Kenyatta International Conference Centre headquarters even after President Kibaki had been declared winner and sworn-in.
Thursday's protest was prompted by the publication in the dailies of presidential result tables purported to be the official ones from the ECK. They showed President Kibaki had received 4,584,721 against ODM's Raila Odinga 4,352,993, restating the figures read out on December 30 on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, which led to violent protests that have claimed more than 486 lives and displaced thousands.
The notice was booked and paid for by the commission secretary Joel Tsola, who also presented a CD of the results to newspaper advertising agents.
The division within the commission was highlighted by the fact Mr Tsola reports to Mr Kivuitu.
Mr Kivuitu's frustration at the goings-on in the commission first emerged two weeks ago when he complained to the media that fresh versions of Form 16 (A) documents, which he had previously seen with alteration marks had popped up. They looked suspiciously new and had the disputed inflated presidential result figures from Kieni and Juja.
On Thursday, he publicly asked why the "complete" presidential results from 209 constituencies had been rushed to the media yet he had asked for clarification on "a few areas" and was awaiting a reply.
"I do not know why the ECK should rush to publish this data at time when serious discussion involving eminent world leaders are ongoing as a result of the ECK's announcement of the election results based on the data, " he said.
Their release could be viewed as a "defensive tactic by a guilty party to the dispute", he added. He did not name the "guilty party" but similar copies of the purported results had been sent to the media the day before by a Government official.
Yet again, Mr Kivuitu called for an inquiry by an "independent and competent team into the commission he heads so that "the respectable persons" could "come out with the truth".
Mr Kivuitu's remarks will add to the confusion caused by his admission in a television interview that he did not know whether Mr Kibaki had won the presidential election, and that this could only be established by scrutinising the commission's records
Results released by the commission at KICC on December 30 are at the centre of the national crisis which has attracted mediation from Ghana's President John Kufuor and keen attention from the UK and US government and the EU.
It started when the ECK declared Mr Kibaki winner of the presidential election, but admitted flaws in the tallying of the results.
ODM and election observers have complained of differences in some of the final results announced by commissioners and those read out at the constituencies.
Before he announced on television, Mr Kivuitu complained that some of the returning officers who had handed in their results had switched off their mobile phones or simply disappeared.
On Thursday he said that although he had seen the data on the results published in the newspapers when it was being verified, he had sought some clarification on a few areas but had not received a reply.
"It seems like some outside force has pushed for its publication otherwise whoever published it would have sought my consent for the use of my name," he said and described the action as "imprudent".
By DAVID MUGONYI Nation (10 Jan 2007)
Last updated: 35 minutes ago
A new storm broke out over the presidential elections Thursday after polls boss Samuel Kivuitu disowned results published in the media by his office, saying he had not approved them.
And he blamed "outside forces" for making public the controversial presidential tallies, which appeared in three pages of paid-for advertising in Daily Nation and The Standard Thursday. "I did not submit this report or authorise my name to be used for its publication. The use of my name is a falsification," the besieged Electoral Commission chairman said in statement.
His complaint will once again raise questions over who really is in charge of the commission, which has been accused of doctoring presidential results in President Kibaki's favour and announcing figures different from those read out at the constituencies, plunging Kenya into a political crisis.
Mr Kivuitu has previously complained that individuals at ECK were still altering presidential tallies at the commission's Kenyatta International Conference Centre headquarters even after President Kibaki had been declared winner and sworn-in.
Thursday's protest was prompted by the publication in the dailies of presidential result tables purported to be the official ones from the ECK. They showed President Kibaki had received 4,584,721 against ODM's Raila Odinga 4,352,993, restating the figures read out on December 30 on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, which led to violent protests that have claimed more than 486 lives and displaced thousands.
The notice was booked and paid for by the commission secretary Joel Tsola, who also presented a CD of the results to newspaper advertising agents.
The division within the commission was highlighted by the fact Mr Tsola reports to Mr Kivuitu.
Mr Kivuitu's frustration at the goings-on in the commission first emerged two weeks ago when he complained to the media that fresh versions of Form 16 (A) documents, which he had previously seen with alteration marks had popped up. They looked suspiciously new and had the disputed inflated presidential result figures from Kieni and Juja.
On Thursday, he publicly asked why the "complete" presidential results from 209 constituencies had been rushed to the media yet he had asked for clarification on "a few areas" and was awaiting a reply.
"I do not know why the ECK should rush to publish this data at time when serious discussion involving eminent world leaders are ongoing as a result of the ECK's announcement of the election results based on the data, " he said.
Their release could be viewed as a "defensive tactic by a guilty party to the dispute", he added. He did not name the "guilty party" but similar copies of the purported results had been sent to the media the day before by a Government official.
Yet again, Mr Kivuitu called for an inquiry by an "independent and competent team into the commission he heads so that "the respectable persons" could "come out with the truth".
Mr Kivuitu's remarks will add to the confusion caused by his admission in a television interview that he did not know whether Mr Kibaki had won the presidential election, and that this could only be established by scrutinising the commission's records
Results released by the commission at KICC on December 30 are at the centre of the national crisis which has attracted mediation from Ghana's President John Kufuor and keen attention from the UK and US government and the EU.
It started when the ECK declared Mr Kibaki winner of the presidential election, but admitted flaws in the tallying of the results.
ODM and election observers have complained of differences in some of the final results announced by commissioners and those read out at the constituencies.
Before he announced on television, Mr Kivuitu complained that some of the returning officers who had handed in their results had switched off their mobile phones or simply disappeared.
On Thursday he said that although he had seen the data on the results published in the newspapers when it was being verified, he had sought some clarification on a few areas but had not received a reply.
"It seems like some outside force has pushed for its publication otherwise whoever published it would have sought my consent for the use of my name," he said and described the action as "imprudent".
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Lucy must save Kenya NOW
The running battles in Kenya and the genocide that is unfolding right before our eyes have nothing to do with a Luo-Kikuyu war. The Luo don't live in Eldoret, neither in Mombasa. It is a war between the disillusioned Kenyans whose election victory was stolen from them and innocent people bearing the brunt just because the thieves happen to belong to their ethnic community. No single Kikuyu, Luo or Kalenjiin deserves to die for mistakes they did NOT commit. Why should so many Kikuyus bear the brunt of violence and near annihilation for the mistakes of a select group of hardliners, while the thieves of a heavily flawed process are cordoned away in the security of heavy police protection? Those people who stole for, and encourage, Mr Kibaki, to hang on to power have little regard for the common good of Kenyans.
The poll was not interfered with and stolen by the ruling class because of their love for Kenya, certainly not for the peasant Kikuyu who were born and grew up in the Rift Valley. My friends in Nandi Hills who grew up and went to school with me need not be displaced. They have no other place they can call home. Nandi Hills is their home. Whether they voted for Kibaki is a non-issue. It was their democratic right to vote for whomever they wanted to vote for. That the poll was stolen from a victor IS NOT democratic. I am ashamed of what I will have to tell my students and colleagues when college opens on Monday. Kibaki does not deserve to be equated to Mugabe, he has worked to leave a legacy and he needs to do one thing to safeguard that legacy. He needs to stop accepting the counsel of insensitive people who are now doing irreparable damage to his reputation. We know who stole the poll for him.
Kenya is witnessing something strange, yesterday's champions of reforms have turned themselves into deformers of democracy and petty thieves of the peoples' popular will. The country is wounded, it is bleeding and it defeats logic why a leader worth his salt should stay away while the country is smouldering and the air is polluted with the stench of roasting human flesh. Do we need this incense to allow Kenyans exercise their God-given freedoms? Innocent Kenyans are being killed by Mungiki (that gang of goons which beheads people in ritual killings) in Eldoret, Kapsabet and Kericho. Mungiki is taking orders from the government because the police are feeling the pain of a battered country and are slowing dfown. Innocent Kenyans need not die, where is the first lady Lucy the civil-servant-slapping champion of women and children. Kibaki did not steal this poll for the Kikuyu, he did it for some narrow vested class interests and please allow me to speak to Lucy Kibaki and her family.
Talk to your husband, Lucy. Tell Kibaki that as a mother and a grandmother you can no longer stand the sight of one more innocent Kenyan dying for no other reason but that he and his senseless supporters stole victory from the people. Kenyans will remember you as the mother of the nation who stood up to the hegemony that has besmirched your family. Save our country, otherwise you will be remembered as the spineless mugger of the nation who stood by as Kenyans were being killed by Mungiki and the Police. Please Lucy, you may even slap all those who stole the ballot for your husband, we will lionise you for that effort and forgive you for slapping a hapless civil servant the other Jamhuri day. If you fail to act now, your family is going down the ignominious class that Bakili Mulusi and Fredrick Chiluba and Mugabe have gone. Lucy, may the billowing smoke and the sharp cry of women and children startle you to act NOW. Save Kenya, Mama Lucy
The poll was not interfered with and stolen by the ruling class because of their love for Kenya, certainly not for the peasant Kikuyu who were born and grew up in the Rift Valley. My friends in Nandi Hills who grew up and went to school with me need not be displaced. They have no other place they can call home. Nandi Hills is their home. Whether they voted for Kibaki is a non-issue. It was their democratic right to vote for whomever they wanted to vote for. That the poll was stolen from a victor IS NOT democratic. I am ashamed of what I will have to tell my students and colleagues when college opens on Monday. Kibaki does not deserve to be equated to Mugabe, he has worked to leave a legacy and he needs to do one thing to safeguard that legacy. He needs to stop accepting the counsel of insensitive people who are now doing irreparable damage to his reputation. We know who stole the poll for him.
Kenya is witnessing something strange, yesterday's champions of reforms have turned themselves into deformers of democracy and petty thieves of the peoples' popular will. The country is wounded, it is bleeding and it defeats logic why a leader worth his salt should stay away while the country is smouldering and the air is polluted with the stench of roasting human flesh. Do we need this incense to allow Kenyans exercise their God-given freedoms? Innocent Kenyans are being killed by Mungiki (that gang of goons which beheads people in ritual killings) in Eldoret, Kapsabet and Kericho. Mungiki is taking orders from the government because the police are feeling the pain of a battered country and are slowing dfown. Innocent Kenyans need not die, where is the first lady Lucy the civil-servant-slapping champion of women and children. Kibaki did not steal this poll for the Kikuyu, he did it for some narrow vested class interests and please allow me to speak to Lucy Kibaki and her family.
Talk to your husband, Lucy. Tell Kibaki that as a mother and a grandmother you can no longer stand the sight of one more innocent Kenyan dying for no other reason but that he and his senseless supporters stole victory from the people. Kenyans will remember you as the mother of the nation who stood up to the hegemony that has besmirched your family. Save our country, otherwise you will be remembered as the spineless mugger of the nation who stood by as Kenyans were being killed by Mungiki and the Police. Please Lucy, you may even slap all those who stole the ballot for your husband, we will lionise you for that effort and forgive you for slapping a hapless civil servant the other Jamhuri day. If you fail to act now, your family is going down the ignominious class that Bakili Mulusi and Fredrick Chiluba and Mugabe have gone. Lucy, may the billowing smoke and the sharp cry of women and children startle you to act NOW. Save Kenya, Mama Lucy
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