Kriegler’s verdict on elections

Kenyans will never know the real winner of last year’s Presidential election. That was the verdict as the Independent Review Commission (IREC) presented its final report on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga was looking on as South African Judge Johann Kriegler presented the report to President Mwai Kibaki, with the major finding being that it was impossible to establish which of them won the election.

The report states: “The conduct of the 2007 elections was so materially defective that it is impossible — for IREC or anyone else — to establish true or reliable results for the presidential and parliamentary elections.”

Power-sharing

Both the President and the Prime Minister who fought a fiercely contested election before going into a power-sharing deal in order to halt a slide into anarchy, welcomed the findings and promised to have the recommendations implemented.

President Kibaki promised to read the report, present it to the Cabinet and have it made public by tomorrow (Friday).

“The report will be presented to the Cabinet in its next sitting for consideration and approval of an implementation plan. A Sessional Paper on this important report will, thereafter, be presented to Parliament,” he said.

Mr Odinga urged the country to positively own up to the atrocities and anomalies that characterised the election to avert future recurrence of social disorder.

He told Kenyans to accept the findings of Kriegler team, saying: “This report must be discussed and owned by all Kenyans in a bipartisan and unified effort so that the country can confront and amicably find a lasting solution to the crisis that led to the post-election violence”.

Bleeding stopped

Added the PM: “They say that every cloud has a silver lining. When we stood here a few months ago, our country was bleeding. We signed an accord and the bleeding stopped. It is not foolish to make a mistake. But it’s a fool who makes the same mistake twice.”

The President and the Prime Minister looked on as Judge Kriegler told the assembled press that the 2007 election “was so impaired that the results were irretrievably polluted. Nobody will ever be able to say who won or who lost the election.”

He said there was widespread bribery, intimidation, ballot-stuffing and vote-buying.

It also said there was “fraud” in the main political parties’ strongholds, which registered implausible overwhelming turnouts. Locking out of agents of other parties from “party strongholds” aided rigging.

The report, a copy of which the Nation obtained, is particularly harsh on the Electoral Commission for mismanagement of the poll, and makes wide-ranging recommendations that would amount to disbandment of the polls body and radical review of electoral laws.

Disagreement

The report says although there was room for “disagreement as to whether there was rigging of the presidential results announced by the ECK, the process was perverted at the polling stage and the recorded and reported results are so inaccurate as to render any reasonably accurate, reliable and convincing conclusion impossible”.

However, the team dismissed allegations that the rigging of the presidential results took place at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre. However, two members of the commission allied to the ODM objected to this finding.

Justice Kriegler said: “The allegation of rigging at the KICC… IREC finds that, contrary to widespread rumour, speculation and supposition, upon proper scrutiny of the evidence, this allegation cannot be sustained.” 

The commission established serious mistakes in tallying and transcribing of results. But while it indicts the ECK, the report also blames political parties and Kenyans in condoning crooked polls, saying: “Though the ECK is primarily responsible for the flaws in the 2007 General Election, the Kenyan society has long condoned, if not actively connived at perversion of the electoral process.”

The Kriegler team, which asked the Government to give the report “urgent and radical attention” gave wide-ranging recommendations, among them the total overhaul of the ECK, taming of political parties and amending of electoral laws and systems.

“The ECK lacks functional capacity, it has a loss of public confidence and there is a need for grave work to be done on it,” Mr Justice Kriegler said.

He warned that defective elections accompanied by violence will remain the norm in Kenya unless the issues raised by his team are addressed. The ECK should be radically reformed with a new name, image, ethos.

It should be composed of just a few commissioners, between three and nine, instead of the present large number, selected in an open and inclusive manner and supported by a professional secretariat.

The Kriegler team also recommends establishment of an independent electoral boundary commission to draw new constituency boundaries, finding that the present constituencies are unequal and gerrymandered.

It states that there is gross disparity on constituencies’ population, which undermines the principle of one-man, one vote.

In addition, delays occasioned by disparity in constituency sizes contributed to the explosive political climate.