Kriegler's Verdict

South Africa's Judge Johann Kriegler, Chair of Kenya's Kriegler Commission (and the person who oversaw South Africa's first post-apartheid elections), held a press conference in Nairobi last Friday, September 19th, at which he highlighted the Commission's findings regarding the controversy and widespread violence that surrounded Kenya's Presidential elections held in December 2007. The Commission's main task had been to determine who actually had won the contest, Kibaki or Raila, and to recommend the way forward.


Why had the Commission been seen as the vehicle for settling the dispute? According to Kofi Annan, "They had considered everything, recount, re-tallying or forensic audit, all agreed an independent committee was the viable option."


What was the verdict of the Kriegler Commission, as reported in the media? First and foremost, that it was impossible to determine who actually won the Presidential contest. Why? Because in the December elections, his Commission had found, "ballot boxes were stuffed all over the country...there was vote-buying, bribery, intimidation, and women were not allowed to stand for certain offices."


And this was not a one-off event. As he had noted on KTN's live TV show Thursday night (see last week's issue of The Standard on Saturday):

"You have been having very bad elections for many years, you have had violence, fraud, vote buying, bribery, intimidation, so election after election you have been prepared for that process... It has now caught up with you and it was a lesson that made Kenyans think of what to do...with what has not been a very good election track record."

Moreover, he added, this "problem of many decades" is:

"...partly the leaders, partly the people, partly your history, partly the electoral commission's fault...everybody has some answering to do for what went wrong that day."

So that now, he said at the press conference:

"If you think it's vital to find out if there was rigging at KICC [where voting results from the country's 210 constituencies were tallied by the Kivuitu-led Electoral Commission] to determine if Raila or Kibaki won...God help you! We could not." And, "If we didn't settle somebody's wish as to who won, I am sorry we are not members of a Jockey Club, we had a job to do."

In his view (in The Standard on Saturday), "The integrity of the process and the credibility of the results were so gravely impaired by...manifold irregularities and defectsthat it is irrelevant whether or not there was actual rigging at the national tally centre. The results are irretrievably polluted."


Hey, wait a minute, a number of commentators have argued: Doesn't that mean that President Kibaki is in office illegally? No, answered the Judge on TV Thursday night, "but I do think the question of the legitimacy of the elections will become a very serious problem in future if people do not decide that they are tired of playing games of democracy and decide that they are entitled to choose their leaders through the ballot."


Clearly, pending specific constitutional reforms, a disputed Presidential election favours any incumbent who believes he/she has won, and on that basis chooses to stay put. On what grounds would the opponent(s) legally, or even forcefully, remove him/her in order to take over? Failure to determine who won does not now, as it did not in January, add any iota of rationale or legitimacy for a Raila takeover. Thus, we can only look to the future for a solution, starting now -- if not yesterday.


One option for the future is to constitutionally mandate the Speaker or Chief Justice, or, in their "absence" (or due to specified incapacity), or their deputies, to assume the office of Acting President while disputed results are sorted out -- even through a fresh election.


Concurrent with this would have to be the requirement that no swearing-in of a new President, or an incumbent in his/her second term, shall take place earlier than 14 days from the date of the announcement of the Presidential election results. This will give time for petitions to be lodged and heard, and will discourage the mischief of hurried and even secretive swearings-in which Kenya has witnessed twice already.


The Kriegler Commission's verdict has, at the very least, put a stamp of judicial authority on an educated view which most thoughtful Kenyans had already silently formed months ago -- as early as January. There are millions of this silent majority, who nevertheless found themselves powerless to influence the post-election turn of events in the crucial first 40 to 60 days or so. Both the President (Kibaki) and the Prime Minister (Raila) have now accepted the verdict, and promised to implement its recommendations. We will just have to wait and see.


Clearly, the Electoral Commission would have to be overhauled, as recommended. However, if there was one item that the Kriegler Commission failed to pay adequate attention to, it was the even greated mess that occurred within the constituencies in relation to Parliamentary and Civic elections. These were so intertwined with the Presidential elections that it is something of a deliberate abdication of duty not to have included in the Commission's terms of reference items specific to these levels, and not to have had something sobstantial to say in the report.


We cannot clean up the presidential election process if we do not also, or first, clean up the process at these lower levels. In very many constituencies, the agents of the presidential candidates were also the agents of their parties' parliamentary and civic candidates -- or vice versa. I saw it in Kisumu Rural. Doing all the dirty work for the presidential candidate, or seeming to, provided a perverse sort of justification (and cover) for doing as much dirty work as was necessary to ensure the parliamentary or civic candidate's own victory.


The corruption is systemic, but has so far been treated as the secret weapon for electoral victory -- which the likes of Kriegler should not be made fully privy to, and certainly should not take away in one "pathetic" instance of inquiry. That's why we'll just have to wait and see.

My Vision, Mission and Agenda for Kisumu Rural Constituency, 2007

MY VISION:
For Kenya: A country and nation-state in which public policy serves the public interest, not private interest. A self-confident, assertive and united Kenya. A prosperous and respected Kenya.
For Kisumu Rural: An increasingly prosperous constituency characterized by sustainable social and economic development, and by the enthusiastic participation of all – women, youth and wazee – in the development effort. An electorate empowered to take its destiny into its own hands. An electorate once again optimistic and confident of the future.

MY MISSION:

To be a leader who leads from the front, and from the heart. To bring back hope and self-respect, and the respect of the nation, to my constituents. To represent them with courage and conviction. To give them the means “to fish,”so as to eliminate the need for handouts. To regenerate the community's social capital by way of new thinking and related activities. To be, in a word, a catalyst and an overcomer. At the centre of all our effort will be innovative Value Added Production (VAP) of goods and services, and a creatively structured synergy between Kisumu Rural and Kisumu City.

MY AGENDA/PRIORITIES/PROGRAMME OF ACTION:

MY Agenda -- The Main Problems I Propose to Prioritize and Tackle:
1.Poverty/Unemployment/Underemployment: Gross incomelessness.

2.Infrastructure: Underdeveloped and deteriorating

3.Education: Declining or stunted educational institutions in terms of physical facilities/amenities, equipment (including ICT) and staffing, and sub-par performance in national exams

4.Health: HIV/AIDS and Malaria pandemic; unplanned evolution of the public health sector

5.Social: The precarious lives of widows and orphans, as well as idle/isolated youth

6.CDF and related Funds: gross misuse and mis-allocation of funds, leading to lost opportunities and arrested futures

7.Leadership: Arrogant and neglectful leadership. For nearly forty years, the country's dominant political culture has been neglectful and at times even hostile to the poor. There is dire need for new, people-oriented leadership and, above all, new thinking – at the Constituency and Ward levels.

The Solutions [My Programme of Action]:

["Piny omewo, ji to odhier!” – The land is rich but the people are poor. Why are they poor? Many reasons. For one, they have not had strong and concerned leadership]

1. Nurturing of Income Earning/Generating Opportunities and Assets (To secure the present, for today's parents and out-of-school youth; a precondition for dongruok ma medore)
– Jobs, Self-employment (trade, craft skills, tools of trade, credit, backward and forward linkages, tourism, services)

“Employment gives the otherwise poor, the employed, the resources with which to overcome poverty – or keep it at bay. The higher the returns accruing from employment, the more distant the risk of poverty...” – Mauri Yambo

According to the World Bank, past experience shows that poverty is now best tackled by means of a three-pronged strategy: 1. Promoting Opportunity for Poor People. 2. Facilitating Their Empowerment. 3. Enhancing their Security.

– Revive agriculture; energize trade and markets; develop synergies.
– Focus on the Demand Side. Government should not just concentrate on Social Overhead Capital of the old kind: Roads, bridges, airports, dams, harbours. A new concept of SOC must be adopted which recognizes that mobilization and galvanization are key ingredients of progress. Institutions must be set up to generate critical mass in selected areas of socio-economic life.
- The fundamental goal is to put increasing amounts of hard-earned cash (and related assets) into the pockets, vibeti, accounts and other secure holdings of hard-working constituents, and to ensure that those assets grow and work for them.

2. Improved Infrastructure (rehabilitated, regularly maintained, expanded transportation and communication networks): roads, bridges, beaches, culverts, power lines, telephone lines, water pipelines, boreholes, etc.

3. Revolution in Education and Training [To secure the future, for the next generation and for posterity, and to enhance the prospects for sustainable development. This requires improved income. Paradoxically, however, years of schooling have a positive relationship with one's “income-earning ability” (see World Bank Policy and Research Bulletin of October-December 2000/January-March 2001, p. 1)]:
a. Focused programme of physical facility development: Improved design, use of a more durable mix of materials, maintenance plan.
b. Equipment: Laboratory Kits for Secondary Schools, Libraries, Books.
c. Performance: Establishing Centres of Excellence, ICT connectivity (Bridging the Digital Divide), Getting rid of a nagging sense of isolation among students and teachers, improve quality of teachers.
d. Technical Training
e. Enhanced role for Maseno University

4. Health: Secure local access to quality health services

5. Improve Social Life (improve Quality of Life): Requires improved income, and presupposes increased access to potable water (Water Harvest Project), improved diet/food among the people, improved shelter/clothing, increased access to electric power (hydro and solar), improved and widespread social amenities/leisure, enhanced networking opportunities for the youth and women and keep youth busy so as to distract them from many anti-social ways.

6. Innovation: in goods and services (music, pottery, tourism, etc)

7. Environmental/Disaster Management: focusing on our rivers, wetlands, Lake Victoria and other water sources and resources; our rocks; and paying attention to floods, soil erosion, and tree-cover.

8. CDF and related funds: To devolve CDF allocation to the sub-Location and to ensure broad-based participatory prioritization of sub-Location projects.

9. Kombewa 2037: To transform Kombewa not just into a model constituency headquarters, but the hub of our socio-economic and political lives from which development will visibly radiate to all corners of the constituency – including such centres as Akado, Daraja Mbili, Holo, Lela, Kaloka, Kolenyo, Kondik, Reru and Riat.

10. Leadership: As the new MP, to be the embodiment of the leader the constituency has in mind and can look up to. As the MP, to spearhead a new wave of confidence-raising across our local communities. To be the role model as motivator, energizer/catalyzer and galvanizer [ “Nyiso ni wanyalo tiyo gi wiwa ma walok ngimawa.”]

By way of conclusion, let us note, as Hardiman-Midgley (1982: 5) pointed out some two decades ago, that most social problems have their roots not in individuals' shortcomings but in “broader external conditions in society as a whole.” Furthermore, social problems undermine development, and will not disappear on their own without determined state intervention. Why state intervention? Because “while voluntarism and local self-help are to be encouraged, the social problems facing developing countries are of such magnitude and have their causes in conditions of such complexity that state intervention is required to deal with them effectively.” This is indeed in the spirit of social democracy, which ODM espouses.

[November 9, 2007]


NOTE: This document is posted for the record only. I had prepared it in early November 2007 for the campaign leading to ODM parliamentary nominations. I was seeking the party's nod for the Kisumu Rural parliamentary seat. However, just a day before the scheduled nomination exercise and at the very end of intra-party campaigns, it was announced in the media that ODM headquarters had given direct nomination to the incumbent, Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o. Everyone knew that he was facing stiff competition from six contestants. The announcement forced five out of the six to seek last-minute nomination in other parties, convinced that there was no way the incumbent was going to win in a straight fight. I was secured nomination as a candidate of Chama Cha Uzalendo (CCU), but my campaign maintained the same vision, mission and agenda.