Insulating the 2017 election against violent extremism

“The chance is small that August 2017 elections (will) ignite a major conflict”, the International Crisis Group (ICG) concludes in a recent report titled: Kenya’s Rift Valley: Old Wounds, Devolution’s New Anxieties (May 2017).

The Brussels-based think-tank speculates that the foremost threat to Kenya’s August 8, 2017 General Election is “the county governorship races”, which “could well trigger inter-ethnic clashes in the Rift Valley”.

As earlier noted by this column (SN April 30, 2017), the potential of the newly created county system to fuel violent conflict is obviously much wider than the Rift Valley.

EXTREMISM

But the escalating threat of violent extremism and cyber-terrorism cast an even darker shadow over the August elections.

In this context, the Africa Policy Institute (API) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are co-hosting a high-profile forum in Nairobi on June 12, 2017 to discuss Kenya’s preparedness and overall strategy to insulate the 2017 General Election against the threat of violent extremism and cybercrime.

Undoubtedly, the twin challenges of violent extremism and cyber-terrorism have immense potential to undermine public confidence and trust in the electoral process in general and the legitimacy of the election outcome in particular.

Experts should help the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) identify early-warning indicators and undertake analyses of risk to Kenya’s stability before, during and after the 2017 election.

TERRORISM
Violent extremism is a mortal threat to humanity and our civilisation.

Not surprisingly, in September 2014, Pope Francis warned of “a piecemeal World War III” under way.

Obnoxiously, innocent civilians, not combatants, are the primary targets in the low-intensity “World War III”.

Its death toll is equally alarming. In the week of June 1-9, 2017 alone, 615 people were killed and 488 others injured in 47 attacks in 24 countries across the five continents!

LONDON ATTACKS
No country, poor or rich, is immune to terrorism.

Three attacks in London and Manchester in the United Kingdom between March and June 2017 killed 33 innocent people and injured 217 others.

In Kenya, two attacks on June 6, 2017 killed one person in Mandera while four aid workers died after their vehicle hit a mine near the Dadaab refugee camp in Garissa.

Debate on elections and violent extremism hinges on the larger question of the connection between democracy and violent extremism. Views on this reveal two extremes.

DEMOCRACY
One, rather sardonic, thesis is that democracies provide fertile grounds for terrorist groups to thrive.

In the age of globalisation, terrorists are able to operate freely across national boundaries and the cyberspace.

However, political scientists James Lutz and Brenda Lutz concluded that no smoking-gun evidence exists to prove that democracies are more prone to violent extremism than totalitarian regimes.

The other, more celebratory thesis, more persuasively articulated by the Washington-based think-tank Freedom House (2015), is that democracy is the best defence against terrorism.

SECURITY AGENCIES
What is patently clear, however, is that a necessary pathway to peace and to defeating the forces of extremism is to anchor democracy on a professionally robust, adequately financed and well coordinated and equipped security sector.

This is the most decisive lesson Kenya learnt from the 1991-2014 decades, when protracted democratic transitions greatly weakened the coordination, control and mechanisms of its security forces.

By 2007, proliferating private militias, vigilantes, criminal gangs and terrorist groups had effectively undermined the state’s monopoly over legal violence, ushering in what scholars describe as “oligopolies of violence”.

In 2011-2015, Kenya came face to face with the well-known vulnerability of transitional democracies to terrorists, populists, nihilists and dissidents fighting to control state power.

FAILED STATES
Therefore, in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 violence, the wave of Al-Shabaab attacks in the 2011-2015 interlude (including the Westgate Mall and the Garissa University) as well as the widespread cases of localised banditry, cattle rustling and criminal violence Kenya risked joining the unsavoury league of the world’s failed states.

The government moved decisively to recapture its monopoly over legal violence and to re-furbish its security sector.

This year, Kenya will reap the security dividends of the government’s heavy investment in the security sector.

In the 2016/2017 financial year, it invested a colossal $2.64 billion (Sh206bn) in security agencies, including the Defence and National Intelligence Service ($1.24 billion) and the Department of Interior ($1.4 billion).

ADEQUATE FUNDS

Comparatively, this was three times more than Tanzania’s allocation ($838 million) and nearly six times Uganda’s allocation ($468 million) to the security sector in the same fiscal year.

In March 2017, ahead of the August 8 polls, the government added $546 million to the security sector, including $81 million to sustain police mobility and security operations, Sh24.8 billion for police and military modernisation and $120 million to enhance security operations during the election period.

Moreover, the 2017 General Election will most certainly benefit from enhanced security arising from investment in CCTV cameras and improved street lighting, which have enhanced community security and facilitated timely access to crime scenes.

CRIME REDUCTION

It will also reap the dividends of a $90 million investment in the national forensic laboratory to enhance the capacity of the police service in investigations and $200 million to secure our borders.

Four years on, heavy investment in the security sector has drastically reduced crime in all parts of the country.

In Nairobi alone, between 2014 and 2017, cases of armed robbery have dropped by nearly 35 per cent.

Theft of motor vehicles has declined by 43 per cent.

And offences targeting individuals such as muggings have dipped by 27 per cent.

TRAINING

Kenya has become a prime destination for conference and other forms of tourism.

Obviously, the days of populism, extremism and revolutionary protests are far from over.

The government should invest in training and equipping the police in non-violent methods that de-escalate crises and counter extremism without violating human rights.

Prof Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of Africa Policy Institute, former Government Adviser (2008-2013) and visiting scholar at University of Nairobi’s Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies