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William Ruto declared Kenya president-elect

Monday August 15 2022
ruto

Kenya’s Deputy President and presidential candidate for Kenya Kwanza alliance, William Ruto, during the launch of his manifesto in Nairobi on June 30, 2022. PHOTO | SILA KIPLAGAT | NMG

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By The EastAfrican
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Kenya electoral agency, IEBC, chairman Wafula Chebukati has declared the winner of the closely-fought presidential election after calm was restored at the national tallying centre, which had erupted into chaos minutes earlier.

Read: Kenya polls agency split on presidential results

Mr Chebukati declared Kenya Kwanza's candidate William Ruto as president-elect and his running mate Rigathi Gachagua as the deputy president-elect, respectively.

Dr Ruto garnered 7,176,141 votes, representing 50.59 percent of valid votes cast, beating his rival Azimio la Umoja flagbearer Raila Odinga who had 6,942,930 votes.

“Despite intimidation and harassment…I have done my duty in accordance with the constitution and the laws of the land,” Mr Chebukati said before reading the votes each of the four presidential candidates got.

On Sunday, Dr Ruto, the outgoing deputy president and Mr Odinga, veteran opposition leader, had appealed for calm as the wait for the final results of the vote dragged on.

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The declaration has been made without results from ­­­­­four of 290 constituencies --Kacheliba, Kitui Rural, Pokot South and Rongai-- whose voting was postponed.

Mr Chebukati also declared the August 9 election credible, free and fair.

Turnout was lower than expected at around 65 percent of Kenya's 22 million registered voters, with observers blaming disenchantment with the political elite in a country battling a severe cost of living crisis.

Read: Lowest turnout in 15 years as youth stay away

The announcement ceremony at the national tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi was attended by diplomats and foreign election observers, who were whisked out when chaos erupted. The clergy was also present.

Polling day passed off largely peacefully, but memories of vote-rigging and deadly violence in 2007-08 and 2017 still haunt Kenyans.

The IEBC had faced sharp criticism for its handling of the August 2017 poll, which in a historic first for Africa, was annulled by the Supreme Court after Odinga challenged the outcome.

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
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Kenya electoral agency split on presidential results

Monday August 15 2022
Juliana Cherera iebc

IEBC vice chairperson Juliana Cherera. PHOTO | NMG

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By The EastAfrican
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Four commissioners of Kenya’s electoral agency, IEBC, have rejected the results of the presidential election yet to be announced by the chairperson on Monday.

The vice-chair of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Juliana Cherera, made the announcement at Serena Hotel in Nairobi city centre, 14.5km from the national tallying centre at Bomas of Kenya in Karen, flanked by three other commissioners.

“We cannot take ownership of the results that will be announced because of the opaque nature of how the last phase has been handled,” Ms Cherera told journalists.

The commissioners, including Francis Wanderi, Irene Masit and Justus Nyang'aya allege that the results were arrived at in an opaque manner without giving further details. 

The IEBC has seven commissioners led by Wafula Chebukati.

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In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement
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  2. Author Profiles

Ugandans, adopt e-mobility and Kenya polls will pass unnoticed

Monday August 15 2022
joach

When Ugandans pray for a peaceful election in Kenya, it is less out of concern for fellow man and woman next door and more out of selfish interest. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGA | NMG

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By JOACHIM BUWEMBO
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Every five years, Uganda develops breathing problems and its heartbeat becomes erratic as Kenya goes to the polls. But it doesn’t mean Ugandans have a preference between Raila Odinga and whoever he has been contesting against in the past, we don’t know how many, elections. The man on the Kampala street wouldn’t tell between William Ruto and Odinga if there were no names printed on their posters.

What scares the man on the street in Kampala is the possible disruption of transport not only between Uganda and Kenya but also internally in Uganda. For if fuel supplies are disrupted, transport in Uganda is badly affected and charges shoot up and even perishable foods like bananas and milk produced a few miles from the market become very expensive. So by the time the Kenyans went to the polls on Tuesday, Uganda’s body was already a nervous wreck.

So when Ugandans pray for a peaceful election in Kenya, it is less out of concern for fellow man and woman next door and more out of selfish interest. We don’t want our supply lines disrupted, and if Kenyans could fight themselves without some of them blocking roads and uprooting railway lines, we probably wouldn’t remember to petition God so fervently to grant our neighbours a peaceful, machete-free election.

Only God knows how much merchandise crosses the Kenya-Uganda border every day, as the dozens of passenger buses that cross the border in either direction every day are vital cargo vessels as well. For their chassis and engines were made for lorries. When they build them so high, it is not for giving passengers a touristic view of the East African landscape; it is for providing space to accommodate a few tonnes of goods between the wheels and the seats above.

So the spectre of a chaotic Kenya election this year, coming on top of skyrocketing fuel prices occasioned by the bizarre war in Europe hit us like, as our people would say, a boil growing on an elephantiasis-ridden organ. Caught in such a predicament, you cannot walk, let alone run. You have to devise different ways of locomotion. And that is what Uganda has done.

Away with fuel! That is becoming the rallying call of the government. Adopt electric mobility. E-mobility? Those are supposed to be things happening in the developed world; we hear of Tesla but have never touched it, let alone ridden in one. But it is neither science fiction nor fantasy. Already, a few hundred electric motorcycles are on the road doing boda boda business. How did they get here?

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Like the biblical Immaculate Conception, the electric bikes were begotten not made. They are not miracles but are designed and made in Kampala using technology acquired from outside the country. Their innovators have, for a few years, been crying out for funding from disinterested financial institutions.

Last week, the Minister of Finance asked the Uganda Development Bank to consider financing them at the lowest possible interest rate in the market of eight per cent, down from the 17.5 publicly considered the lowest you can get a loan at in the country.

Nearly half of the passengers in the country are carried on boda boda. Although the electric bike costs 25 percent more than the petrol one of equivalent strength, it costs half what it takes to power and maintain the fuel one. So after a year on the road, the electric rider is happier and richer than the one who runs on petrol.

For its part, the government had invested in the production of bigger electric vehicles — buses which can carry 90 passengers while emitting zero carbon and giving the people on board the experience of travelling in the first world. Next on the government agenda is electrifying the railway — whatever new sections are built, the focus is to electrify them.

This time if the Ugandans have the discipline to see through the current dream of e-mobility, the 2027 Kenyan elections will pass unnoticed in Uganda.

Joachim Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail:[email protected]

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement
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The rule of law makes disputes over election results less scary

Monday August 15 2022
COURTPIC

Kenyan Supreme Court judges, from left to right: Justice Njoki Ndung’u, Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu, Chief Justice David Maraga, Prof Jackton Ojwang and Justice Isaac Lenaola. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION

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By Charles Onyango-Obbo
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As Kenya's August 9 approached, there were two very contradictory scenes at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).

If you arrived on a late evening or early morning flight, you were likely to run into a stuffy arrivals immigration hall with more than 1,000 people — mostly foreign tourists — waiting hours to clear.

Outside, the queue of cars waiting to drop off people, many of them fearing likely violence during the election, was long too. Sections of the middle class usually flee African elections, fearing for the safety of their families — especially daughters and wives.

In the past, the once-illustrious Ugandan town of Jinja was taken over by Kenyan-Asian families, election refugees, waiting for the possible election uncertainties back home to blow over before returning.

This time, newspapers in Uganda reported more Kenyans entering the country to hedge against risks from the August 9 poll. There is nothing new there.

What is new here is the large numbers of foreigners visiting, unbothered by the prospect of ramping mobs angry that their candidate had been robbed at the ballot box.

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Indeed, two days to the vote, seven-time Formula One champion Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton arrived in Kenya with his entourage from Namibia. Among other things, they were due to visit to take in the wildebeest migration in the Maasai Mara National Reserve.

It all tells of an emerging trend in other African countries. Partly due to the internet and social media, international knowledge of Africa and how its risks are evaluated have actually improved.

In much the same way few would have been deterred from visiting Los Angeles, California, in December 2020 because a pro-Donald Trump mob attacked the Capitol in an American version of a coup, the same distinction is increasingly being made about parts of Africa.

It also seems that the Covid-19 pandemic has altered how an increasing number of people in the north look at risk in the south.

A few restless "natives" burning tyres and clobbering each other with clubs over elections cannot be as scary as the virus.

However, for Kenya, the defining moment seems to have come in 2017. On September 1, 2017, the Kenya Supreme Court made history, overturning the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta. It was the first time a court nullified a presidential election in Africa.

The next day we had a dinner date at a popular Italian restaurant with former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, cartoonists Godfrey Mwampembwa (Gado) and Paul Kelemba (Maddo), and other troublemakers.

We didn't book a table, reasoning that with many people staying away at home, afraid that the court ruling might spark violence, there would be many open tables.

I arrived first, and the place was chock-a-block with noisy, happy folks, mostly foreigners — the type that's supposed to fear politics-related violence. We waited for nearly 45 minutes to get a table.

It seemed then that the nullification of the presidential election had the opposite effect on them.

Rather than fear, it had suggested to them that, at some level, Kenya was a country of the rule of law. It made them feel safer.

President Kenyatta denounced the judges as "crooks". It turns out they were someone else's angels.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the "Wall of Great Africans". [email protected]

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement
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Kenya champions an ‘unAfrican’ openness in the electoral process

Sunday August 14 2022
Kenyans vote.

Voters argue queue early in the morning to cast their ballots at a polling station at St Stephen School in the informal settlement of Mathare in Nairobi County, on August 9, 2022. The election was praised by observers as largely peaceful and open. PHOTO | AFP

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By Charles Onyango-Obbo
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Watching the August 9 Kenya elections and the unfolding count, from the US, a commentator noted: “You gotta hand it to the Kenyans. This level of transparency must be a first in the history of presidential elections anywhere, ever. Yes?”

In East Africa, Africa, and indeed parts of the world, many were glued to Kenyan TV feeds and the unfolding drama online.

Next door in Uganda, a viral tweep quipped that “Kenyans are wondering why Ugandans are supporting their candidates more than they [themselves] do. They don’t know this is the only chance we have to freely support any candidate without being arrested.”

On social media, many red-eyed Ugandans were reporting having stayed up all night to watch the TV updates.

The unprecedented transparency came from a decision by Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to photograph all signed results sheets at every polling station and upload them all to its portal, with the media, political parties, and everyone free to download and tot up the numbers as they came along.

With that, they removed possibly up to 70 percent of the possibility of election rigging that happens in most of Africa, where vote figures are often brazenly tampered with along the way as they journey to the national tally in the capital. Yet, for all the transparency, old habits didn’t die. There were delays of delivery of voting kits to some counties, and elections in two counties (the equivalent to regional states) had to be postponed because the wrong materials were sent there.

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    End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?
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Advertisement

After the voting, there were returning officers who vanished into the dark with results sheets, and in at some places a few miscreants were caught with pre-ticked ballot papers with the aim of stuffing the boxes. In the end, most polling got running, and the IEBC judged that the hitches were a tiny drop in the ocean.

The results of the new levels of electoral probity were almost immediately evident in the provisional results announced by the media. The two leading presidential contenders, Deputy President William Ruto and former Prime Minister Raila, ran neck and neck, with their numbers swinging wildly as they swapped positions, separated by a whisker.

Electoral graft

With turnout of over 60 percent -- a historic low -- analysts wondered whether there had been high levels of apathy, or the new transparency had only confirmed that the previous disputed elections were indeed stolen, and thus the high percentage had reflected the margin of electoral graft, rather than actual turn-up.

Going into Friday evening, it was still a toss-up as to who of them would take the prize. At tie-up that would send Kenya into uncharted territory looked likely, as functionaries of both candidates claimed victory, as an acrimonious final tally got underway, with both agents of both feuding over every form.

The Kenya constitution and election laws require one to win at least 25 percent of the vote in 24 of the 47 devolved counties, in addition to win 50 percent plus one of the valid votes cast.

The drama, though, kept many Africans riveted. There seemed to be agreement that Kenya had set a new threshold, and the events that played out live had to lead to some response in several countries, because other Africans seeing “unAfrican” electoral openness and fairhandedness previously thought to be impossible, had made a deep impression.

In Tanzania, where the ruling CCM routinely mugs the opposition at election, and where the less authoritarian President Samia Suluhu Hassan took power in 2020 after the abrupt death of her authoritarian predecessor John Magufuli, there was a lot of comment about the “Kenyan example” being witnessed, offering a model for the country’s troubled constitutional and electoral reform.

Ugandans mostly had a feast, using the Kenyan developments to mock the government of President Yoweri Museveni, in power for 36 years now, whose elections are usually marked by widespread crackdown of the opposition, violence, and internet and social media shutdowns.

At a big-picture level, there was something more profound.

There has been a serious ongoing exploration of what “democracy model” is best for Africa.

Until recently, the “development model,” was championed in Ethiopia by the late Meles Zenawi and in East Africa by President Paul Kagame and his ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front had a good run. Highly technocratic, limiting the chaotic and freewheeling – and sometimes highly ethnic – politics at the street level, hard on corruption, and heavily focused on delivering goods and services, was winning out.

Liberal democracy

The Western-style liberal democracy thrived too, but at its best, it was in the tiny island states like Mauritius and Seychelles, and in smaller countries on mainland Africa like Botswana and Namibia.

In the big African nations like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, liberal democracy was discredited by grand corruption, incompetence, a dominant ruling party that always manages to smother rivals at the vote, and the ethnic polarisation brought by cutthroat electoral competition.

For a while, too, the model in Uganda, of a quasi-one party dominated system, with strongman Museveni at the top, and an aggressively free market system, captured the imagination, but it became difficult to replicate elsewhere, and at home began to sink under patronage politics as Museveni’s rule grew long.

What happened in Kenya was different and new in that it went over the top, and weaponised electoral openness, at a time when Africa is facing a democracy crisis. By happy coincidence, it happened when the country moved to its first election, where the old ethnic and regional divides were blurred, and a class-based politics around the distribution of economic good and opportunities emerged. Those three factors, made the moment possible.

Now, these might be the enduring contribution of Ruto and his “hustlers”. And Raila’s (and outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta), for putting a knife in the great Kenyan ethnic divide – that between the Kikuyu and Luo.

And for Africa, as the Raila election slogan went, “Inawezekana.” It’s possible. Both rivals won.

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement
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  2. Author Profiles

William Ruto declared Kenya president-elect

Monday August 15 2022
ruto

Kenya’s Deputy President and presidential candidate for Kenya Kwanza alliance, William Ruto, during the launch of his manifesto in Nairobi on June 30, 2022. PHOTO | SILA KIPLAGAT | NMG

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By The EastAfrican
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Kenya electoral agency, IEBC, chairman Wafula Chebukati has declared the winner of the closely-fought presidential election after calm was restored at the national tallying centre, which had erupted into chaos minutes earlier.

Read: Kenya polls agency split on presidential results

Mr Chebukati declared Kenya Kwanza's candidate William Ruto as president-elect and his running mate Rigathi Gachagua as the deputy president-elect, respectively.

Dr Ruto garnered 7,176,141 votes, representing 50.59 percent of valid votes cast, beating his rival Azimio la Umoja flagbearer Raila Odinga who had 6,942,930 votes.

“Despite intimidation and harassment…I have done my duty in accordance with the constitution and the laws of the land,” Mr Chebukati said before reading the votes each of the four presidential candidates got.

On Sunday, Dr Ruto, the outgoing deputy president and Mr Odinga, veteran opposition leader, had appealed for calm as the wait for the final results of the vote dragged on.

Related

  • Raila Odinga and William Ruto.
    Can Kenya new leader fill Uhuru's EAC shoes?
  • Kenyans vote.
    Kenya champions an ‘unAfrican’ openness in the electoral process
Advertisement

The declaration has been made without results from ­­­­­four of 290 constituencies --Kacheliba, Kitui Rural, Pokot South and Rongai-- whose voting was postponed.

Mr Chebukati also declared the August 9 election credible, free and fair.

Turnout was lower than expected at around 65 percent of Kenya's 22 million registered voters, with observers blaming disenchantment with the political elite in a country battling a severe cost of living crisis.

Read: Lowest turnout in 15 years as youth stay away

The announcement ceremony at the national tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi was attended by diplomats and foreign election observers, who were whisked out when chaos erupted. The clergy was also present.

Polling day passed off largely peacefully, but memories of vote-rigging and deadly violence in 2007-08 and 2017 still haunt Kenyans.

The IEBC had faced sharp criticism for its handling of the August 2017 poll, which in a historic first for Africa, was annulled by the Supreme Court after Odinga challenged the outcome.

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement
  1. The East African
  2. Author Profiles

Kenya electoral agency split on presidential results

Monday August 15 2022
Juliana Cherera iebc

IEBC vice chairperson Juliana Cherera. PHOTO | NMG

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By The EastAfrican
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Four commissioners of Kenya’s electoral agency, IEBC, have rejected the results of the presidential election yet to be announced by the chairperson on Monday.

The vice-chair of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Juliana Cherera, made the announcement at Serena Hotel in Nairobi city centre, 14.5km from the national tallying centre at Bomas of Kenya in Karen, flanked by three other commissioners.

“We cannot take ownership of the results that will be announced because of the opaque nature of how the last phase has been handled,” Ms Cherera told journalists.

The commissioners, including Francis Wanderi, Irene Masit and Justus Nyang'aya allege that the results were arrived at in an opaque manner without giving further details. 

The IEBC has seven commissioners led by Wafula Chebukati.

More follows

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In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement
  1. The East African
  2. Author Profiles

Ugandans, adopt e-mobility and Kenya polls will pass unnoticed

Monday August 15 2022
joach

When Ugandans pray for a peaceful election in Kenya, it is less out of concern for fellow man and woman next door and more out of selfish interest. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGA | NMG

joachimpix
By JOACHIM BUWEMBO
More by this Author

Every five years, Uganda develops breathing problems and its heartbeat becomes erratic as Kenya goes to the polls. But it doesn’t mean Ugandans have a preference between Raila Odinga and whoever he has been contesting against in the past, we don’t know how many, elections. The man on the Kampala street wouldn’t tell between William Ruto and Odinga if there were no names printed on their posters.

What scares the man on the street in Kampala is the possible disruption of transport not only between Uganda and Kenya but also internally in Uganda. For if fuel supplies are disrupted, transport in Uganda is badly affected and charges shoot up and even perishable foods like bananas and milk produced a few miles from the market become very expensive. So by the time the Kenyans went to the polls on Tuesday, Uganda’s body was already a nervous wreck.

So when Ugandans pray for a peaceful election in Kenya, it is less out of concern for fellow man and woman next door and more out of selfish interest. We don’t want our supply lines disrupted, and if Kenyans could fight themselves without some of them blocking roads and uprooting railway lines, we probably wouldn’t remember to petition God so fervently to grant our neighbours a peaceful, machete-free election.

Only God knows how much merchandise crosses the Kenya-Uganda border every day, as the dozens of passenger buses that cross the border in either direction every day are vital cargo vessels as well. For their chassis and engines were made for lorries. When they build them so high, it is not for giving passengers a touristic view of the East African landscape; it is for providing space to accommodate a few tonnes of goods between the wheels and the seats above.

So the spectre of a chaotic Kenya election this year, coming on top of skyrocketing fuel prices occasioned by the bizarre war in Europe hit us like, as our people would say, a boil growing on an elephantiasis-ridden organ. Caught in such a predicament, you cannot walk, let alone run. You have to devise different ways of locomotion. And that is what Uganda has done.

Away with fuel! That is becoming the rallying call of the government. Adopt electric mobility. E-mobility? Those are supposed to be things happening in the developed world; we hear of Tesla but have never touched it, let alone ridden in one. But it is neither science fiction nor fantasy. Already, a few hundred electric motorcycles are on the road doing boda boda business. How did they get here?

Related

  • Traffic snarlup in Kenya near the Malaba border with Uganda.
    Northern Corridor seeks new routes to ease congestion at Malaba, Busia​
  • trucks
    Northern Corridor most costly in the world
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Like the biblical Immaculate Conception, the electric bikes were begotten not made. They are not miracles but are designed and made in Kampala using technology acquired from outside the country. Their innovators have, for a few years, been crying out for funding from disinterested financial institutions.

Last week, the Minister of Finance asked the Uganda Development Bank to consider financing them at the lowest possible interest rate in the market of eight per cent, down from the 17.5 publicly considered the lowest you can get a loan at in the country.

Nearly half of the passengers in the country are carried on boda boda. Although the electric bike costs 25 percent more than the petrol one of equivalent strength, it costs half what it takes to power and maintain the fuel one. So after a year on the road, the electric rider is happier and richer than the one who runs on petrol.

For its part, the government had invested in the production of bigger electric vehicles — buses which can carry 90 passengers while emitting zero carbon and giving the people on board the experience of travelling in the first world. Next on the government agenda is electrifying the railway — whatever new sections are built, the focus is to electrify them.

This time if the Ugandans have the discipline to see through the current dream of e-mobility, the 2027 Kenyan elections will pass unnoticed in Uganda.

Joachim Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail:[email protected]

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
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The rule of law makes disputes over election results less scary

Monday August 15 2022
COURTPIC

Kenyan Supreme Court judges, from left to right: Justice Njoki Ndung’u, Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu, Chief Justice David Maraga, Prof Jackton Ojwang and Justice Isaac Lenaola. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION

Charles-Obbo new
By Charles Onyango-Obbo
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As Kenya's August 9 approached, there were two very contradictory scenes at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).

If you arrived on a late evening or early morning flight, you were likely to run into a stuffy arrivals immigration hall with more than 1,000 people — mostly foreign tourists — waiting hours to clear.

Outside, the queue of cars waiting to drop off people, many of them fearing likely violence during the election, was long too. Sections of the middle class usually flee African elections, fearing for the safety of their families — especially daughters and wives.

In the past, the once-illustrious Ugandan town of Jinja was taken over by Kenyan-Asian families, election refugees, waiting for the possible election uncertainties back home to blow over before returning.

This time, newspapers in Uganda reported more Kenyans entering the country to hedge against risks from the August 9 poll. There is nothing new there.

What is new here is the large numbers of foreigners visiting, unbothered by the prospect of ramping mobs angry that their candidate had been robbed at the ballot box.

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Indeed, two days to the vote, seven-time Formula One champion Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton arrived in Kenya with his entourage from Namibia. Among other things, they were due to visit to take in the wildebeest migration in the Maasai Mara National Reserve.

It all tells of an emerging trend in other African countries. Partly due to the internet and social media, international knowledge of Africa and how its risks are evaluated have actually improved.

In much the same way few would have been deterred from visiting Los Angeles, California, in December 2020 because a pro-Donald Trump mob attacked the Capitol in an American version of a coup, the same distinction is increasingly being made about parts of Africa.

It also seems that the Covid-19 pandemic has altered how an increasing number of people in the north look at risk in the south.

A few restless "natives" burning tyres and clobbering each other with clubs over elections cannot be as scary as the virus.

However, for Kenya, the defining moment seems to have come in 2017. On September 1, 2017, the Kenya Supreme Court made history, overturning the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta. It was the first time a court nullified a presidential election in Africa.

The next day we had a dinner date at a popular Italian restaurant with former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, cartoonists Godfrey Mwampembwa (Gado) and Paul Kelemba (Maddo), and other troublemakers.

We didn't book a table, reasoning that with many people staying away at home, afraid that the court ruling might spark violence, there would be many open tables.

I arrived first, and the place was chock-a-block with noisy, happy folks, mostly foreigners — the type that's supposed to fear politics-related violence. We waited for nearly 45 minutes to get a table.

It seemed then that the nullification of the presidential election had the opposite effect on them.

Rather than fear, it had suggested to them that, at some level, Kenya was a country of the rule of law. It made them feel safer.

President Kenyatta denounced the judges as "crooks". It turns out they were someone else's angels.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the "Wall of Great Africans". [email protected]

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement
  1. The East African
  2. Author Profiles

Uhuru Kenyatta’s economic legacy: big on promises, but weak on delivery

Monday August 15 2022
Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta. PHOTO | PSCU

Conversation
By THE CONVERSATION
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Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, ascended to Kenya’s presidency in March 2013. This followed a contested poll that they won, with a slim majority of 50.3 percent of the votes cast.

They took office shortly after the promulgation of Kenya’s progressive constitution in 2010. That gave them a unique responsibility of providing leadership on its implementation and entrenchment.

Article 43 of the  new constitution covers economic and social rights. It confers every citizen rights to the “highest attainable standard” of health and access to reasonable standards of housing and sanitation. It also calls for access to adequate food of “acceptable” quality, clean and safe water, social security, and education.

As Kenyatta and Ruto’s second term comes to a close, it is important to establish the extent to which they have lived up to these constitutional expectations.

During the second term of their presidency (2017-2022), Uhuru and Ruto’s government has focused economic strategy on core aspects of Kenya’s Vision 2030, labelled the Big 4 Agenda.

The strategy rested on four pillars. These were food security, affordable housing, universal health care, and manufacturing and job creation. Through it, the government sought to implement projects and policies aimed at accelerating economic growth and transforming lives.

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Read: Uhuru uses state address to drum up support for his legacy projects

Despite these grand plans, in my view, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

On the positive side, the outgoing government boasts of infrastructure projects in sectors such as roads and water. Examples include the completed Nairobi Expressway and over 2000 dams that are at various stages of construction.

Read: OBBO: Kenyatta’s expressway could make Nairobi feel like it’s Los Angeles

These projects have the capacity to improve lives. For example, better roads will reduce transport time to deliver commodities to markets while completed dams will lower disease incidence by promoting access to clean drinking water.

But there are negatives too. The country’s performance on job creation was weak, with unemployment rates worsening by 2.93 percentage points from 2.81 percent in 2013 to 5.74 percent in 2021. Weak job creation is explained by the not-so-robust economy. Between 2013 and 2021, Kenya’s economic growth (GDP) averaged 4.4 percent while tax revenues stagnated at approximately 14.8 percent of GDP.

Uhuru and Ruto’s most prominent economic legacy is runaway public debt, whose growth has not been commensurate with economic performance. In this article, I quickly survey what I believe to be the government’s economic performance highlights since 2013.

Public debt

When Uhuru and Ruto took office in March 2013, Kenya’s public debt stood at about Ksh1.8 trillion ($17.95 billion), of which about 45 percent was externally sourced. Nine years later (by March 2022), the stock of public debt had grown by 343 percent to almost Ksh8 trillion (about $67 billion). Just over 50 percent is due to external borrowing.

The excessive reliance on loans has driven the ratio of public debt to GDP beyond 70 percent. This has raised questions about whether the country has the financial capacity to meet present and future obligations (interest and principal) arising from the debt.

Expectedly, the ballooning public debt has put a lot of pressure on the exchequer. For the year 2022/23, the country is spending 53.8 percent of every shilling collected on servicing debt obligations.

The heavy debt servicing outlays have affected social infrastructure sectors. Take health. Official data show that government healthcare spending has hardly grown since 2017. It went up from 2.8 percent of national government expenditure during 2017/2018 to a measly 3.7 percent during 2021/2022.

Read: Uhuru built roads, rail but piled a whole load of debt

This has meant that the country hasn’t been able to effectively address constraints facing the sector. These include inadequate medical equipment and shortage of trained human resource. Both have reduced the quality of healthcare.

The corollary of low-quality healthcare is the country’s high disease burden. For example, the annual cancer death rates increased between 2012 and 2018 by almost 16 percent. It is projected to grow further.

Manufacturing

In the manufacturing sector, the government allocated about Ksh135 billion in the 2022/23 budget. This mostly targeted satellite industries in the textile, leather, agro-processing, and construction sub-sectors.

Some gains have been realised. However, inadequate infrastructure in the designated industrial zones has discouraged private sector participation and diminished the potential positive effects.

In particular, energy infrastructure appears to be the waterloo of manufacturing in Kenya. Kenya’s installed electricity generation capacity stood at only 10,730 GWh in 2019, a change of about 20 percentfrom the 2013 level of 8,943 according to the International Energy Agency’s data.

This level of generation pales in comparison to recently industrialised economies such as South Korea (581,492) and emerging economies like South Africa (252,639) and Malaysia (175,778).

Given its importance to industrialisation, the low power generation is an impediment to takeoff in the manufacturing sector. It could therefore delay Kenya becoming a newly industrialised middle-income economy providing high quality life to its citizens.

Food security

Years of failed economic policies, reliance on rain-fed agriculture and nomadic livestock husbandry, low levels of mechanisation of food production, and insufficient emergency food reserves, have combined to expose swathes of the country to food shortages.

By including agriculture in the Big 4 Agenda, Uhuru’s government sought to reduce the severity of these effects. There have been achievements such as the expansion of insurance coverage of farmers, commissioning of national food reserves, commissioning of grain driers, and opening of agro-processing incubation and research centres.

Yet, these achievements have not spawned visible impact: the current drought in the Horn of Africa region has triggered fears of impending food shortages in which an estimated 3.5 million to 4 million Kenyans could face severe hunger, malnutrition and starvation.

Also read: Farmers in western Kenya show how Africa can feed itself

Overall, food production has not performed very well during the 2013–2022 period. For example, agricultural value added grew from 18.6 percent of GDP to 22.4 percent, a meagre expansion over the nine-year period. This was despite efforts to support value addition in agriculture, such as processing fruits into juices.

The fight against corruption

Like most countries in post-independence Africa, weak institutions and poor governance have been Kenya’s bane. Most Kenyans therefore welcomed Uhuru’s declaration of corruption as a national security threat and his promise to tackle it.

Kenya has a well-established institutional framework for dealing with dishonesty in the management of public resources. Chapter 6 of the constitution imposes high standards of integrity on holders of state offices, and establishes an independent ethics and anti-corruption commission to ‘ensure compliance and enforcement’.

But Kenya still ranks among the worst in corruption perception. This suggests that the public sees the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission as a lame duck institution.

For example, there have even been accusations that the constitutional body has lent itself to partisan political interests since Uhuru’s anti-corruption campaign appeared to target political rivals.

Credence was lent to these accusations recently by the leaked information published in the Pandora Papers. The leaked information appeared to implicate the president’s family in the stashing of fortunes in offshore tax havens. Although the report does not necessarily imply financial impropriety, the anti-corruption body has not, to my knowledge, investigated these allegations.

Nevertheless, the commission recently demonstrated its mettle when a case that it brought before the court led to a conviction of individuals implicated in a maize procurement fraud worth nearly $3 million. Yet, many similar cases have been dragging in court for a long time while some have been dropped.

As the country ushers in a new government, Kenyans hope that the mistakes of the last 10 years can be avoided while the gains realised are built on. For example, will the investment in infrastructure be exploited to maximise welfare gains?

- Odongo Kodongo is the Associate professor, Finance, University of the Witwatersrand

In the headlines

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement
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Paradox of foreign poll observers in Kenya who see evil back home

Sunday August 14 2022
Election observers.

Observer missions heads: (from left) Former presidents Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone (African Union), Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete (East African Community) and Mulatu Teshome of Ethiopia (Igad) after a press briefing in Nairobi on August 11, 2022. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NMG

Jenerali Ulimwengu
By JENERALI ULIMWENGU
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“When the hurly burly is done/ when the battle is lost and won.’’

This famous line in Shakespeareana was going through my mind as I watched and watched the poll results trickling in ever so slowly on Kenyan television screens, tracing the seesaw progress of the two leading presidential contenders this past week down to the photo finish.

The calm manner in which the collating of the results was done, despite all the cliffhanging and nail-biting, gave me hope throughout that this time around we were going to get to the end of this journey unscathed.

Of course, once bitten twice shy, and we always have reason to believe that what can go wrong will go wrong. Once, we have seen Kenyan election results thrown out by the law courts, and once, infamously, we saw Kenyans jumping onto each other’s throats, pushing their nation to the brink, literally.

Upward trajectory

I believe that what the Kenyans have shown us is that they becoming a learning people. Having gone to the precipice in 2007 and having experienced serious hiccups later, they have learnt their lessons, decided to cure their shortcomings and moved along on an upward trajectory. They have clearly refused to do the same thing the same way over and over again, expecting different results, the proverbial signs of insanity.

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So, those who went to observe the elections were treated to a more serene scene than those I allude to above. They were looking at a people that is beginning to appreciate that elections need not be bloody battles, even though they be highly competitive, sometimes aggressive and bruising.

I thus commend the Kenyan people for showing us this face of their country, which tells me that it is possible to do politics in a civil manner.

Significantly, they have also shown us that time-hallowed stereotypes need not always be taken into consideration in the shifting political sands of Kenya: that a leader from Mount Kenya could embrace one from Nyanza and champion his electoral campaign was almost an impossibility only the other day.

Whatever else may have been lost in this election, that is a plus, a huge one. Now, we can expect the two communities to concentrate on what the Kenyans do best, and that is turn this ethnic détente into economic synergies allowing their young men and women to organise themselves together in the creation of wealth with the aim of heaving their communities out of the abyss of poverty and backwardness.

Let us face it, the only political messages that are worth looking at are those that aim at improving the lot of the people we claim to represent, to make their lives better, to seek to be inclusive in our programmes and to care for the least advantaged, seeking to achieve economic and social justice, the only basis for realistic peace.

I am a realist, and I of course never lose my focus on the fact that politicians will always lie, because that is the lot of them. Lying is to politicians what eating meat is to lions; they simply cannot help themselves.

What is required of them is that they do not destroy the habitat I which we all live.

Good one

As I pondered all that, I was naturally following on what the election observers from outside Kenya were doing and saying. I think that the practice of having election observers is a good one and which should be encouraged and enhanced.

Still, we could do it better by choosing who gets to be an observer. These should be people who have credentials showing they have practised observation in their own countries, and they should have shown that in observing elections in their countries they have proved their credibility and honesty.

For instance, if you want individuals to observe good footballing practices, you want to pick those who have practised football where they come from. It does not help matters if those who come to observe such activities have no idea of the offside rule or the difference between a corner kick and a penalty.

It is with this understanding that I would like to ask whether there was any justification for having Tanzanian observers in the observer teams for the Kenya elections, whatever regional organisation they were representing. When did they last have an election that even a casual onlooker could have recognised as credible, free and fair. When?

Nemo dat

There is a legal phrase in Latin: “Nemo dat quod non habet (you cannot give what you do not have).” It is usually used when deciding whether a proprietary right has been passed on to the current holder. But it can be used in situations where credibility is vouchsafed by someone whose own credibility is doubtful.

If in your own country you have not been able, or been willing, to observe and speak out against what is wrong, how can you now presume to observe and say anything at all in other countries?

Let me be fair: It was not Tanzania alone. I also saw a former Ethiopian president among the observers, and I was wondering about the same thing.

Nemo dat!

Jenerali Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: [email protected]

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement
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Can Kenya’s new leader fill Uhuru Kenyatta’s large EAC shoes?

Sunday August 14 2022
Raila Odinga and William Ruto.

Presidential contenders Raila Odinga and William Ruto. PHOTO | FILE | NMG

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By LUKE ANAMI
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The new Kenyan president inherits large shoes worn by his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, a master of soft power whose popularity rose exponentially in the East African Community (EAC), especially in his second term due to his bridge-building efforts.

President Kenyatta goes down in recent history as the leader who restored a semblance of integration at a time when the EAC looked like it would collapse following several years of squabbles over trade and security among partner states.

Kenyatta was a builder, linking the region through major infrastructure development, including the standard gauge railway, new highways, port and aviation projects.

With such high credentials, the region expects his successor to pick up from where he left off, and there is hope that some of the long pending issues around regional trade and integration will now be resolved by new players.

But are Raila Odinga and William Ruto cut out for the task?

The winner of the election may not have much choice, as the region expects continuity and stability. Some of the issues may just need political goodwill to implement as the Kenyatta administration has been hard at work. Such include lifting of trade barriers and finishing projects that are in progress.

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While Mr Odinga has expressed willingness to continue on the same trajectory – with improvements – Dr Ruto has expressed his discomfort with the infrastructure juggernaut that has left the country reeling under heavy debt.

The new leader was expected to be named on Sunday evening after a tedious vote verification following the Tuesday elections which were praised in many quarters as open and largely peaceful.

As the new leader prepares to assume office, integration projects and political stability will perhaps be the least East Africa will be demanding from him.

But he will first have to deal with domestic challenges such as the need to cushion the poor from economic crises beyond Kenya’s control such as the war in Ukraine and the post-pandemic recovery hangover.

Politically, the new leader will also be required to reunite a country divided by political completion and a tight presidential contest.

The new administration is expected to continue implementing the regional infrastructure projects that President Kenyatta initiated during his 10-year tenure. Both the Odinga and Ruto manifestos, and the country’s own tradition — including in a law passed last year — encourage integration and closer ties with neighbours and to promote trade.

The Foreign Service Act of 2021 places regional integration as the immediate role of the government in advancing the country’s foreign policy. This president will be the first to implement the law that only came into effect earlier this year.

Dr Ruto and Mr Odinga have made promises to implement critical infrastructure projects that connect the region.

Mr Odinga, the Azimio la Umoja leader, prioritised infrastructure projects in his manifesto released in July.

“Infrastructure projects that cut across national boundaries and are regional can all be developed simultaneously, with each country committing to do its part while the RECs (regional economic communities) provide supporting and coordinating roles,” said Odinga, who has been the High Representative for Infrastructure at the African Union.

An Odinga presidency would continue with the infrastructure projects that President Kenyatta initiated.

“With that spirit, the Kisumu-Malaba-Kampala standard gauge railway line can be done in a fairly short time if Kenya and Uganda each commit to developing their respective segments,” Mr Odinga said.

This project is close to Mr Odinga’s heart as it opens up the country for more trade with the Great Lakes region and his western Kenya backyard would particularly benefit from the increased trade linked with activity in Lake Victoria.

Dr Ruto of the United Democratic Alliance, part of the Kenya Kwanza coalition, also captures trade as a key part of his bottom-up economic model to spearhead economic growth in the country. He targets small and medium enterprises, agriculture, housing, healthcare access, digital superhighway and the creative economy to enable Kenyans of low incomes to rise and trade more with the region.

Dr Ruto has pledged to complete all roads under construction in the country, some of which link Kenya with its neighbours.

The 700km road for Isiolo-Kula, Mawe-Modogashe-Samatar-Wajir-Kutulo-Elwak-Ramu corridor is one of the roads Ruto promised to complete. Once complete, the road will link Kenya and Ethiopia and Somalia under the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (Lapsset) corridor.

“I will complete road projects that were begun during the Jubilee administration,” said Ruto when he launched his manifesto in July. “My government will construct a 100,000 kilometre fibre optic network, roll out fibre to counties, villages, schools, over 24,000 businesses and homes, establish the Africa Regional Hub and promote the development of software for export.”

Mr Odinga promised to focus on the Ethiopia-Sudan Power Transmission Interconnector, which could be accomplished quickly, with each of the countries already doing their part.

With Somalia having applied to join the East African Community, it is envisaged that the new leadership in Nairobi will speed up the Nairobi-Mogadishu Fibre-Optic link which would be developed simultaneously on the Somalia and Kenya sides. Somalia has some of the fastest internet connections, and some of the cheapest on the continent, in spite of being perennially in a security crisis blamed on al Shabaab.

In spite of having criticised the government initially for retaining Kenyan troops in Somalia as part of AU mission, a president Odinga would not pull them out soon, as the African Union Transition Mission (ATMIS) is undergoing final stages of drawdown by end of 2023. Dr Ruto too has promised to be a part of continental efforts on counterterrorism.

Mr Odinga’s position as the AU High Representative for Infrastructure Development has elevated him to an African statesman buoyed by his pan-Africanist credentials.

His relationship with the regional leadership is likely to benefit the region in terms of continuity of the projects and diplomacy.

He enjoys close ties with Democratic Republic of Congo’s Felix Tshisekedi, and like outgoing President Kenyatta, has recently tried to embrace Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, who endorsed a Ruto presidency before declaring that he had no favourite in the contest. Mr Odinga was close to the late Tanzanian president John Magufuli whose deputy Samia Suluhu Hassan took over after his death in 2020; and is likely to be embraced by the other EAC leaders.

Mr Odinga, who since 2018 has politically worked with President Kenyatta, would ease into the Kenyatta legacy projects, as they seemed to share a vision for the country.

Dr Ruto, Kenyatta’s principal assistant though estranged in the sunset years of their tenure, would also easily take up the Jubilee projects, which were mooted with his contribution.

A president Ruto would aid the resolution of the current trade wars between Kenya and Uganda, being a Museveni friend and having been associated with several investments in Uganda. He would therefore take a keener interest in the development of the Northern Corridor efficiencies.

Ugandans expect the new administration to not only ensure the safe passage of their goods but also resolve the disputes over milk, eggs and sugar exports to Kenya on which Nairobi has imposed steep tariffs.

In a regional context, a Raila presidency is expected to oversee the rebound of the Lake Victoria economy. The Kenyatta administration has been keen on tapping the huge potential in the country’s blue economy, mainly in the Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria.

The government refurbished the Kisumu Port and revived shipbuilding at the dry dock.

The $25 million refurbished Kisumu Port was reopened by President Kenyatta together with Burundi President Ndayishimiye in June last year.

Port revenues are slowly picking up, as manufacturers and traders embrace lake transport after decades of dormancy in the Lake Victoria transport network.

Lake transport has cut transport costs between Kisumu and Uganda by up to 30 percent, according to Kenya Railways which is operating the vessel MV Uhuru to transport goods, including petroleum products, to Uganda.

The planned increase in the number of vessels now means a higher maritime capacity in the lake, which has a catchment area covering 193,000 square kilometres in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, as well as parts of Rwanda and Burundi.

In addition to Kisumu, major facilities used in the regional trade are Mwanza, Musoma and Bukoba in Tanzania, and Port Bell and Jinja in Uganda.

The Kenyan government has also connected the SGR line to the metre gauge one at the Naivasha Inland Container Depot, allowing a seamless flow of cargo from the Port of Mombasa to Kisumu and onward to Uganda.

President Kenyatta’s administration has invested heavily in the region’s road network, a catalyst for increased and easy movement of farm produce and industrial goods to markets.

They include the Ahero-Kisii-Isebania road (172 kilometres) and upgraded feeder roads totalling about 77 kilometres. The road forms part of the A1 road connecting with Tanzania, facilitating cross-border movement for passengers and cargo.

The Kisumu-Kakamega-Kitale road has also been upgraded, with several links that connect four counties and markets in Uganda and South Sudan.

Tanzania’s President Samia and Kenyatta in July 2022 officially opened the 42.4km Arusha Bypass, which is part of the regional Arusha-Holili-Taveta-Voi transit corridor that links Tanzania with Kenya.

While handing over the EAC chairmanship to Burundi President Ndayishimiye, President Kenyatta said the road will be completed by his successor.

“The connection between Arusha and Voi to Mombasa will ease the supply of agricultural produce such as maize, tomatoes and vegetables and will help fight poverty in our countries by improving the lives of the people. Infrastructure is the foundation of our integration,” said Kenyatta. “I will not be around to see its completion but I promise that my successor will complete that project.”

Glimmer of hope

The Lapsset project, which has been dormant due to lack of participation by partners Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan, has a glimmer of hope in the new administration.

Mr Odinga says the Lapsset is a good example of a regional project whose implementation has been paralysed by lack of national ownership and failure by regional economic communities to prioritise it.

The eight Igad member states together with a population close to 300 million people sitting on an ocean shoreline of 11,600 kilometres has significant potential for a blue economy.

The region is also sitting on underexploited minerals with evidence of sizeable amounts of platinum, silver, gold, soda ash, limestone, phosphate, copper and zinc across the Igad region that Kenyan leadership promises to exploit.

“It is for this reason that I have, in the past two years, been advocating the establishment of an Africa fund for infrastructure to support important and necessary project preparation and development of a pipeline of bankable infrastructure projects,” said Mr Odinga.

Besides infrastructure, Kenya has played a major role in ensuring peace in the region.

Kenya has for some time now been trying to broker direct peace talks between the government of the DRC and M23 rebels who have seized parts of eastern Congo.

The new Kenyan administration is expected to continue and review the implementation of the 2013 Nairobi Declaration and support Mr Kenyatta, on whom the EAC has vested the onus of brokering peace in the Congo.

Already Kenya has been involved in a shuttle diplomacy day after the M23 rebel group declared a unilateral ceasefire on April 1, saying it was seeking dialogue with the government.

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
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Kenya champions an ‘unAfrican’ openness in the electoral process

Sunday August 14 2022
Kenyans vote.

Voters argue queue early in the morning to cast their ballots at a polling station at St Stephen School in the informal settlement of Mathare in Nairobi County, on August 9, 2022. The election was praised by observers as largely peaceful and open. PHOTO | AFP

Charles-Obbo new
By Charles Onyango-Obbo
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Watching the August 9 Kenya elections and the unfolding count, from the US, a commentator noted: “You gotta hand it to the Kenyans. This level of transparency must be a first in the history of presidential elections anywhere, ever. Yes?”

In East Africa, Africa, and indeed parts of the world, many were glued to Kenyan TV feeds and the unfolding drama online.

Next door in Uganda, a viral tweep quipped that “Kenyans are wondering why Ugandans are supporting their candidates more than they [themselves] do. They don’t know this is the only chance we have to freely support any candidate without being arrested.”

On social media, many red-eyed Ugandans were reporting having stayed up all night to watch the TV updates.

The unprecedented transparency came from a decision by Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to photograph all signed results sheets at every polling station and upload them all to its portal, with the media, political parties, and everyone free to download and tot up the numbers as they came along.

With that, they removed possibly up to 70 percent of the possibility of election rigging that happens in most of Africa, where vote figures are often brazenly tampered with along the way as they journey to the national tally in the capital. Yet, for all the transparency, old habits didn’t die. There were delays of delivery of voting kits to some counties, and elections in two counties (the equivalent to regional states) had to be postponed because the wrong materials were sent there.

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After the voting, there were returning officers who vanished into the dark with results sheets, and in at some places a few miscreants were caught with pre-ticked ballot papers with the aim of stuffing the boxes. In the end, most polling got running, and the IEBC judged that the hitches were a tiny drop in the ocean.

The results of the new levels of electoral probity were almost immediately evident in the provisional results announced by the media. The two leading presidential contenders, Deputy President William Ruto and former Prime Minister Raila, ran neck and neck, with their numbers swinging wildly as they swapped positions, separated by a whisker.

Electoral graft

With turnout of over 60 percent -- a historic low -- analysts wondered whether there had been high levels of apathy, or the new transparency had only confirmed that the previous disputed elections were indeed stolen, and thus the high percentage had reflected the margin of electoral graft, rather than actual turn-up.

Going into Friday evening, it was still a toss-up as to who of them would take the prize. At tie-up that would send Kenya into uncharted territory looked likely, as functionaries of both candidates claimed victory, as an acrimonious final tally got underway, with both agents of both feuding over every form.

The Kenya constitution and election laws require one to win at least 25 percent of the vote in 24 of the 47 devolved counties, in addition to win 50 percent plus one of the valid votes cast.

The drama, though, kept many Africans riveted. There seemed to be agreement that Kenya had set a new threshold, and the events that played out live had to lead to some response in several countries, because other Africans seeing “unAfrican” electoral openness and fairhandedness previously thought to be impossible, had made a deep impression.

In Tanzania, where the ruling CCM routinely mugs the opposition at election, and where the less authoritarian President Samia Suluhu Hassan took power in 2020 after the abrupt death of her authoritarian predecessor John Magufuli, there was a lot of comment about the “Kenyan example” being witnessed, offering a model for the country’s troubled constitutional and electoral reform.

Ugandans mostly had a feast, using the Kenyan developments to mock the government of President Yoweri Museveni, in power for 36 years now, whose elections are usually marked by widespread crackdown of the opposition, violence, and internet and social media shutdowns.

At a big-picture level, there was something more profound.

There has been a serious ongoing exploration of what “democracy model” is best for Africa.

Until recently, the “development model,” was championed in Ethiopia by the late Meles Zenawi and in East Africa by President Paul Kagame and his ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front had a good run. Highly technocratic, limiting the chaotic and freewheeling – and sometimes highly ethnic – politics at the street level, hard on corruption, and heavily focused on delivering goods and services, was winning out.

Liberal democracy

The Western-style liberal democracy thrived too, but at its best, it was in the tiny island states like Mauritius and Seychelles, and in smaller countries on mainland Africa like Botswana and Namibia.

In the big African nations like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, liberal democracy was discredited by grand corruption, incompetence, a dominant ruling party that always manages to smother rivals at the vote, and the ethnic polarisation brought by cutthroat electoral competition.

For a while, too, the model in Uganda, of a quasi-one party dominated system, with strongman Museveni at the top, and an aggressively free market system, captured the imagination, but it became difficult to replicate elsewhere, and at home began to sink under patronage politics as Museveni’s rule grew long.

What happened in Kenya was different and new in that it went over the top, and weaponised electoral openness, at a time when Africa is facing a democracy crisis. By happy coincidence, it happened when the country moved to its first election, where the old ethnic and regional divides were blurred, and a class-based politics around the distribution of economic good and opportunities emerged. Those three factors, made the moment possible.

Now, these might be the enduring contribution of Ruto and his “hustlers”. And Raila’s (and outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta), for putting a knife in the great Kenyan ethnic divide – that between the Kikuyu and Luo.

And for Africa, as the Raila election slogan went, “Inawezekana.” It’s possible. Both rivals won.

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
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  1. The East African
  2. Author Profiles

IEBC managed polls well despite ballot mix-ups, kit hitches

Sunday August 14 2022
Kenyans vote.

A group of voters at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022 during Kenya's general election. PHOTO | LUIS TATO | AFP

tee
By TEE NGUGI
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Last Tuesday, Kenyans went to polls and I cast my ballot within 45 minutes. This was an improvement from 2017, when it took me more than two hours to vote.

In the 2013 election, the exercise was managed chaos. So, if my experience is anything to go by, in terms of logistics and planning, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has improved.

However, even on this score, glaring shortfalls, inadequacies and inefficiencies remain. For instance, there were too many failures of the Kiems (Kenya Integrated Elections Management System) kit in several parts of the country. In the lead up to the elections, the IEBC had shown — despite words of caution from some quarters — inflexible faith in the durability of the kit. Then there was the mix-up of ballot papers that caused the electoral body to postpone elections for members of parliament and governors in some constituencies and counties.

Our elections also need to improve on the question of gender representation. An overwhelming majority of people contending for the various seats are men.

Women who seek elective posts are disadvantaged by lack of finances and deeply ingrained patriarchy that still sees women as belonging in the home.

Women who are not married or are divorced are made to feel ashamed of their status. In the lead up to this election, a politician insinuated that Martha Karua, running mate of Raila Odinga, and Charity Ngilu, outgoing Governor of Kitui, were not family-oriented due to their marital status (Ngilu is widowed).

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The sexualisation of women politicians once caused Wangari Maathai to challenge her male political opponents to focus on the part of her anatomy “starting from the neck upwards.”

The other missing part in our elections is the connection between our material conditions and the kind of leadership we elect.

A candidate’s history, record in office, their character and their ideas should all form the criteria for their evaluation as leaders. In our situation, the fact that someone has been convicted in a court of law, or is facing serious criminal charges, or whether they at one time committed atrocities against the people, etc., seem not to matter. We are motivated by tribalism and all manner of fraudulent gimmicks.

At one time, a politician became so popular through his antics, which included incitement to violence, that he had a choice of elective positions. He became an MP in two different constituencies, and later Governor of Kiambu County. Yet he had never been associated with a single useful idea or legislation.

Our media also need to improve on critically assessing candidates and their proposals. For months, the media kept repeating, without challenge, outrageous falsehoods peddled by a candidate who claimed that selling marijuana and hyena testicles could help the country repay its debt in a year. By not offering counter arguments, the media legitimised his wacky views.

Africa’s development crisis is fundamentally a crisis of leadership. We will remain stagnant until we resolve that fundamental crisis.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator

In the headlines

Uhuru’s economic legacy: big on promises, weak on delivery

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Despite these grand plans, the government’s economic performance has been a mixed bag.

End of ethnic groupings in determining who becomes king?

Voters wait to cast their votes at a polling station in Nairobi on August 9, 2022.

Kenyans voted according to their socioeconomic interests and social justice.

Kenya poll: Schools reopening delayed a second time
Observers laud Kenya for increased number of women in polls
Rising child abuse cases in Tanzania force review of law
Kenya election: Clerics call for peace and calm
Somaliland says violent protests were 'foreign induced'
Advertisement

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