Restoring faith in elections

Its been seven days since the announcement of the election results in Kenya. In these seven days the world has watched with shock as violence has killed roughly 300 people in some of the worst electoral violence the continent has seen in recent years. The violence in Kenya is reminiscent of the 3-day "war" that erupted in Kinshasa when election results from the 1st round of presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo was announced mid-2006. Despite instances of electoral violence prior to the elections, indications were that Kenyans were enthusiastic about the elections and had faith in the electoral commission (ECK). In seven days all faith in the electoral process has disappeared. A timeline of the vanishing follows:

• Sunday (30 Dec): The announcement of results is disrupted prior to and during the event with power cuts and clearing of the media out of the results centre. The official announcement of results occurs later in an exclusive broadcast in a private room away from the media centre with the public television broadcaster and a few officials present. A media blackout is announced shortly after the president is sworn in.
  
• Monday (31 Dec): Violence erupts in Kenya. By the end of the Monday, four of the 22 commissioners chose to distance themselves from the announcement of the previous day, calling the election results into the question and asking for an independent enquiry.
  
  

• Tuesday (1 Jan): Election observers begin producing their preliminary reports agreeing that the voting process was credible, but all questioning the results process. Late in the day, the highly respected Chair of the ECK, Mr Samuel Kivuitu, shockingly admits to acting under pressure from rival political parties
  
• Wednesday (2 Jan): The Law Society of Kenya indicates it will challenge the result in court, berating the Chair of the ECK for his actions against a backdrop of call for mediation to bring the violence to an end.
  
• Thursday (3 Jan): Observer groups start calling for urgent action to review the results, along with international leaders
• Friday (4 Jan): Scant reference is made to the electoral commission in the online media news as the focus turns to international mediation and talks of a government of national unity
  

In six days the election commission lost all credibility that it possessed before. Even with the controversial and systematic replacement of 19 of the 22 Commissioners during the course of 2007, the renewal of Kivuitu's contract as Chair of the ECK in the weeks ahead of the election created a sense of comfort to many Kenyans and outsiders. It is now apparent that as a sole individual he was not enough to prevent the dramatic turn of events. What do Kenyans think of elections and the electoral commission today? Kenyapundit wrote that:

It is a sad day for Kenya when millions of first time young voters have had their voice ignored - how do you tell these people that their vote matters in 2012?

It is a sad day for Kenya that Kenyans will no longer trust the one avenue they have - the ballot box.

It is a sad day in Kenya that the democracy that has been painfully and slowly nurtured since 1992 has been damaged in one day.

In five years (2012) another election dawns for Kenya. What will the state of the ECK be at that time? Will the same reported high turnout of 2007 be seen in 2012? Will there be any commissioners in place that saw the 2002 AND 2007 elections? How many of senior election officials that work behind the scenes still be at the ECK? How does the ECK go about restoring faith in the electoral process? How do those civil society organisations who mobilised the masses of youth to vote respond after this election?

The post-mortem that will conducted after the dust has settled will most likely call for radical and sweeping changes to be made to the electoral law, the structure of the ECK and the powers of returning officers. Electoral reform will be the order of the day. But how do you restore faith of so many Kenyans, many of them first-time voters who queued patiently for hours on Election Day? After witnessing such devastation, as a Kenyan, how do you go and vote without recalling the trauma of the 2007 elections? The importance of the results management process has been emphasised time and again on this blog. Picking up the pieces is going to be a massive challenge for all Kenyans, not just the ECK. My sympathies go to the families and friends of those who lost loved ones in the chaos.