Road to August General Election is bumpy

The conduct of past elections reveals that a credible election is the product of sound preparations in three main areas, among other things. One is institutional preparedness. Two is the confidence of political leaders in the electoral process itself. The last is voters’ views on the extent to which the election reflects their choices. But a quick review on these three areas shows general inadequacy in preparations, limited confidence in “politics”, and a poor attitude among voters on the election itself.

Institutional preparedness is the responsibility of the elections’ management body as well as other relevant institutions. It is about preparations by the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to ensure delivery of elections in a manner acceptable by all as free, fair and credible. It is also about implementing the laws and regulations; it is about putting the “elections house” in good order. It is about putting systems in place and preparing for logistics.

Institutional preparedness is also about paying attention to technical details particularly those concerning administration of the process from the beginning to the end. And the end here is not necessarily the final results of elections alone. It is also about how the results are delivered and communicated to the voters.

How the IEBC prepares in this area is critical to the election process. In fact, this aspect of preparation determines how the people will receive the final results. It will shape people’s views on the results. They will make judgement of the results by simply looking at how the commission conducted the process as well as how the commission communicates on various issues. This implies a need for greater transparency on the part of the commission.

Politicians kill institutions that don’t act in their interest

The role of IEBC in managing the electoral process is of course affected by other factors such as views by politicians. Politicians “mobilise negative utterances” that often end up eroding gains in the electoral process. They tend to mobilise negative narratives on any institution that fails them in terms of promoting their interests.

Political utterances can even undermine the credibility of a technical process. This is simply because political supporters do not bother to think beyond the utterances provided their leaders have uttered them. All this means that technical and administrative preparation, alone, does not pass muster with politicians and their group of supporters. “Doing things right” to create the correct political perceptions then is an important aspect of this preparatory work but is often missed out. The only problem is that it does not matter how “right” one is if political elites feel the process will defeat their interests.

All the same, people’s views on the electoral process is a product of the judgement of the technical as well as the political aspect of the process. But throughout 2016, the commission was not doing very well in the eyes of the public. At the end of 2016, many people had limited confidence in the commission.

Kenya’s Afrobarometer survey data on people’s views in various institutions at the end of 2016 reveal shocking low level of confidence in the IEBC. When asked “how much do you trust the IEBC”, among other institutions, only 34 per cent of Kenyans said they had trust in the IEBC. This is the lowest rating on any Commission since 2008. Interestingly, Kenyans have similarly low ratings for the police: only 34 per cent said they have trust in the police. This is not surprising. The ratings on the police have not shown any improvement since 2008. The police remain the most poorly rated institution since 2008.

Of course 2016 was not a “politically good” year for the IEBC. It was the year politicians wanted the commissioners out. But the commissioners who were in office at the time invited this trouble for themselves. They single-handedly failed the commission by their poor reading of the political mood. They did their bit in delivering the 2013 General Election. But they failed to acknowledge one basic fact: our political leaders cannot trust commissioners to deliver an election twice because politicians are not used to trusting institutions. Neither do they trust each other. They are distrustful of situations they do not control. It is now common knowledge that a commission is there for a season – not for all seasons. Had they read the political mood and quit the commission early enough, it is possible that people would have viewed the commission differently. But they remained in office on the belief that the mood was in their favour. It was not. This of course dented the image of the IEBC.

It is going to take a while before the commission draws sufficient trust across all the regions. Cross-regional support is important because party politics polarises the country into contrasting ethnic blocs. The ethnic divide then becomes the lenses through which voters “judge the conduct of elections”. And if political leaders on one political bloc show distrust for the commission, then their supporters will equally lose confidence in the commission.

“Doing things right” and “doing the right things” in a transparent manner will probably help address the “trust” deficit that the commission is facing. But it is not a walk in the park job.

Confidence of politicians in electoral process insufficient

Political elites play a role in building confidence in electoral processes. Their narratives and general view on how the electoral process is conducted matters a lot in creating the conducive environment for credible, free, and fair elections. But their conduct thus far has demonstrated a failure on their part to do things right. And because they are not “doing things right” and they are not “doing the right things”, they have begun to show little trust in the electoral process. Whether in the opposition or the government side, politicians are behaving the same way; they would prefer to have a process they can control. Their actions are contributing to the weakening of the electoral process in certain respects. Notable in this regard is their mobilisation of people to register as voters. Without exception, all politicians began by retreating to their ethnic regions to beat the drums of electoral war. In fact, they all began speaking in vernaculars as they mobilised their clans and ethnic groups in general to register. And again without exception, they warned their communities that they are at war with “enemies” or other competitors.

The vernacular words used in the mobilisation of voters is generally deepening the divisions. The language is shaping the August election into a high stakes do-or-die exercise. This is in turn deepening ethnic divisions at the national level because the political alliances are consolidated on ethnic basis. At the level of the counties, clan loyalties and competition along clan and sub-ethnic lines are intensifying. The national is reproducing itself at the local level in different ways; divisions along clan and sub-ethnic lines are the main fault lines for county level electoral wars.

The voter registration exercise is the main theatre where these wars are now taking place. Both the opposition and the ruling alliance have turned the voter registration into an election campaign. They are all convinced that total number of registered voters by region and by ethnic group will determine the final election result. They are convinced that people will vote along ethnic lines. They are also convinced that “fringe” ethnic communities and specifically those that have no hope of fielding a presidential candidate will help either of the opposition groups to win the election. The voter registration, therefore, is being viewed as the real election. The alliance that will register the most voters, in their view, will win.

This is certainly a narrow and pessimistic view of Kenya’s politics. It does not allow room to focus on issues. Indeed, politicians are mobilising voters across their ethnic communities without putting any coherent view on party policies or issues that their parties will address.

In other words, the August election is now about numbers rather than about Kenya’s development. The election is viewed as an end itself rather than a means to an end. This is making the process bumpy and messy. It is possible that the manifestoes of the competing political alliances will address this shortcoming by identifying issues that the alliances will pay attention to. But this is an issue of wait and see.

Prof Karuti Kanyinga is based at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi.

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