Kenyans Head to the Polls

Supporters of the Jubilee Alliance at a pre-election rally / (Reuters/Noor Khamis)

Happy election day! That is, election day in Kenya. The long-anticipated contest began earlier this morning (with polls closing as I write), amid growing anxiety over sporadic episodes of violence in recent weeks. Thus far, today’s reports indicate that violence has been isolated to a few incidents in the coastal town of Mombasa and regions near the Somalia border. We will know much more, of course, after the electoral committee begins the important work of counting the votes.

The election is important for a number of reasons. Some are quite obvious. It is a chance for Kenya to demonstrate that the horrendous post-election violence in 2007-2008 was an aberration, and not a trend. The poll pits Uhuru Kenyatta — son of Kenya’s first president (Jomo Kenyatta), and a defendant in an ongoing ICC trial for his role in the 2007 violence — against Raila Odinga, whose unexpected defeat by Mwai Kibaki in 2007 amid allegations of widespread fraud set the country aflame. Odinga’s late father was also an erstwhile ally of Jomo Kenyatta, before Odinga joined an opposition movement and Kenyatta imprisoned him for two years. This election therefore provides Raila Odinga with a chance at redemption — the opportunity to settle a decades-long familial rivalry, and a final shot to win a position that many believe was stolen from him five years ago. It also holds tribal implications, since Odinga would be the first Luo to occupy the State House. Kenyatta, of course, is a Kikuyu, one of only two groups (along with the Kalenjin) to hold the presidency in Kenya’s half century of independence. In a plural society like Kenya where power and resources often flow vertically along ethnic lines, an Odinga win may hold significant domestic implications.

These storylines certainly provide drama and layers of sub-text. But they also draw attention away from the other important elements of this election. It is the first chance for Kenya to select lower-level leaders to fill new positions created in Kenya’s 2010 constitution, a document that devolved considerable power to county-level governments across the country. This could have a significant impact on future incentives for political candidates as well as citizen-state relations, particularly in a country with a history of centralized power. This election also marks the introduction of a few new technologies to prevent fraud, such as biometric voter registration and electronic submission of results. Many were concerned that the government would not provide the election commission with sufficient resources to procure and deploy these new tools, and today will provide a preliminary look at their capacity to mitigate the problems that emerged in 2007.

For a much more thorough look at these issues, and more, check out this great election primer from IFES. Lots of useful information on both a political and technical level.

I’m sure we’ll be covering the election results, and political implications, in the days and weeks to come. On the presidential level, neither Odinga nor Kenyatta will likely win after today. The new constitution lays out a threshold system, whereby a candidate needs over 50 percent of the national vote as well as at least 25 percent in over half of all counties. Failing that, there will be a second round run-off between the top-two vote winners. Stay tuned…