My Elections Diary

Run-up.I have only voted twice in national elections before this year. Once in 1997 and again in 2002. Though I qualified to vote in 1992, I was out of the country. More recently, I missed the referendum vote due to negligence on my part (I forgot to remove my voter’s card from the office)! In the run up to the 2007 elections, I was taking no chances. Over one year ago, I transferred my voting station in an effort to lend a helping hand to two friends running for civic and parliamentary offices in my current home constituency. I made two attempts to confirm the updated status via text messages, but both times, I got negative feedback. ECK could only update these movements in November. So three days to the election, I try the text confirmation and I am still a voter in my old station! I am in panic, since all offices are closed. More panic, when I recall all the friendly antagonism I have generated in my circle of friends with my unbridled and passionate support for my preferred presidential candidate. What will I say to them if I fail to vote? What excuse, will I give after the referendum fiasco, a painful day that I wish to erase from my memory forever! With such a backdrop to my voting history, and in view of how important this elections are, its understandable to say that I went to bed on 26th night with only one choice open to me the next day- to vote by any means necessary Election Day.I woke up early and a few minutes before six I was driving to my voting stations about 3 kilometres away. What surprises me is how heavy vehicular and pedestrian traffic is at this early hour. Seems like the civic education worked. At the voting station, I was pleasantly surprised by the lengthy queues a few minutes after six. I joined the one I perceived shortest, but after an hour of very orderly queuing, we are informed that we need to follow some alphabetical order. I find myself at the furthest point from my rightful queue. There is grumbling and a few heated exchanges majorly directed towards the ECK presiding officers (POs), but after half an hour we are in the right queues and waiting our turn to vote. Of course the actual voting starts at least 90 minutes late. When my turn comes, I am exited, but alas, I am not on the voters roll! The PO recommends I check the queues with initials of my other names. I patiently wait for two other chances to check. By this time there are tens of other potential voters facing a similar dilemma. We eventually congregate at the PO’s office to scrutinise the Deletion list for double registered voters. Some are on the list and submit themselves to the mercy and discretion of the PO. He advices them to produce their second cards and forfeit one. Others are advised to go vote at their original stations. Since I am not on that list, I try two master lists which contain voters listed by ID number and another one listed by Voters Card Number. I am not on either. I get desperate. The PO informs me that though I have a voter’s card for the station, there is no way I will vote without appearing on the register! I am devastated. It is now about 1.00 pm. I take a break at a nearby shopping centre to contemplate my fate. Most of my friends have voted and my phone rings incessantly as they remind me of that fact. I watch happy Kenyans walking away with a gait of accomplishment and this adds to my misery. I rue the day my altruistic side drove me to transfer my vote! I also declared ECK an incompetent lot for not effecting a simple transfer. Rather than blame the world, I decide to go back and try talking to the PO once again. I link up with a friend of mine who suffers the same fate. The crowds have eased considerably and the PO is now able to talk to us. He scrutinises our cards and discusses with his officers. They request we hang around until all the voting is finished. I bet they want to ensure that we don’t vote here and dash to another station. So when the last voters are almost done, we are allowed in and our names are put down in the “black book”. We are then “lectured” on the virtues of ensuring our papers are in order well in advance and though technically we are valid voters, it is only the POs good heart and humane approach to the law that sees us voting. After profusely thanking the PO, my friend and I vote with permanent smiles on our faces and glee in our hearts! It’s now 5.00 pm and we can join the droves of other Kenyans in drinking dens all over town as we await the results. What a day. Results receiving party. Back in 2002, along with a few friends, I spent the two days after elections under a tree receiving the tumultuous results through the Citizen Radio. A few days to elections, I decided, we could have a small party to receive results a la 2002. So, I invited about a dozen of my friends, from a cross-section of political persuasions, to my house. George would provide bitings, while my guests would bring their beverage of choice. Since many families were not travelling, I end up with quite a number of guests and their families. We have a jovial day as we receive the election results. As happened in 2002, ECK are slow in releasing results and the media gladly fills this vacuum to the delight of a news-hungry Kenya. Unlike 2002 when Citizen Radio took the lead, KTN and NTV are the most reliable stations for the latest news. They have also invested heavily and prepared for this exercise- both have correspondents and reporters all over the country and especially in the hotspots. They are able to get in live feeds from the field. Once or twice, we are able to see micro satellite- dishes behind Rita Tinina as she reports “live” from Mombasa. This can only be good for the media. The kids are all over, the mothers are in the lawn while the men are in my study room, fitted with a TV, the day’s papers and a radio. The mood is jovial, the conversations centre on how much our democratic credentials have grown. Although we belong to assorted political persuasions, we respect each other’s democratic right to support whoever they wish. Half of the guests are also of mixed community marriages. Our kids fondly refer to each other as “Nairobi cousins”. We are a small cosmopolitan Kenya. Exactly as I envision my Kenya. Anyway, back to the results, we sense something is amiss in the manner that the results are trickling in, after all in 2002 on the night of elections, at least 40% of the results were in and by end of the second day, we had a pretty good picture of the overall results. But here we were on the second day with less than 30% results declared. The one million margin in the presidential vote notwithstanding, the news of the day is the resolve with which cabinet ministers have been shown the door - at least by early afternoon we are counting over 16. There is also a high turnover of MPs across the political divide. It seems to me that there was a genuine desire for change. After the last of my guests have left well past midnight, I continue watching the TV and exchanging views with a few friends on phone………then Kimunya and Uhuru appear on TV assuring their supporters of a victory when they wake up “tomorrow”! I go to bed anxious and apprehensive. Something is afoot… The next morning and all day is the most agonisingly long day in the collective life of our country. There is drama on TV all day and I can’t help imagining what would happen if there is an electric blackout? I believe Shailja Patel, a poet is better placed to take up the rest of my, and I believe millions of other Kenyan’s story. She has put words to all the mixed emotions that dominated the best part of the first week of 2008…….. (This letter made the runs in the internet and also made it to the mainstream media.) AN OPEN LETTER TO SAMUEL KIVUITU, CHAIR OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF KENYA Mr.Kivuitu,We've never met. It's unlikely we ever will. But, like every other Kenyan, I will remember you for the rest of my life. The nausea I feel at the mention of your name may recede. The bitterness and grief will not You had a mandate, Mr. Kivuitu. To deliver a free, fair and transparent election to the people of Kenya . You and your commission had 5 years to prepare. You had a tremendous pool of resources, skills, technical support, to draw on, including the experience and advice of your peers in the field - leaders and experts in governance, human rights, electoral process and constitutional law. You had the trust of 37 million Kenyans. We believed it was going to happen. On December 27th, a record 65% of registered Kenyan voters rose as early as 4am to vote. Stood in lines for up to 10 hours, in the sun, without food, drink, toilet facilities.As the results came in, we cheered when minister after powerful minister lost their parliamentary seats. When the voters of Rift Valley categorically rejected the three sons of Daniel Arap Moi, the despot who looted Kenya for 24 years. The country spoke through the ballot, en masse, against the mindblowing greed, corruption, human rights abuses, callous dismissal of Kenya's poor, that have characterised the Kibaki administration. But Kibaki wasn't going to go. When it became clear that you were announcing vote tallies that differed from those counted and confirmed in the constituencies, there was a sudden power blackout at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, where the returns were being announced. Hundreds of GSU (General Service Unit) paramilitaries suddenly marched in. Ejected all media except the government mouthpiece Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. Fifteen minutes later, we watched, dumbfounded, as you declared Kibaki the winner. 30 minutes later, we watched in sickened disbelief and outrage, as you handed the announcement to Kibaki on the lawns of State House. Where the Chief Justice, strangely enough, had already arrived. Was waiting, fully robed, to hurriedly swear him in. You betrayed us. Perhaps we'll never know when, or why, you made that decision. One rumor claims you were threatened with the execution of your entire family if you did not name Kibaki as presidential victor. When I heard it, I hoped it was true. Because at least then I could understand why you chose instead to plunge our country into civil war. I don't believe that rumor any more. Not since you appeared on TV, looking tormented, sounding confused, contradicting yourself. Saying, among other things, that you did not resign because you "did not wantthe country to call me a coward", but you "cannot state with certainty that Kibaki won the election". Following that with the baffling statement "there are those around him [Kibaki] who should never havebeen born." The camera operator had a sense of irony - the camera shifted several times to the scroll on your wall that read: "Help Me, Jesus." As the Kenya Chapter of the International Commission of Jurists rescinds the Jurist of the Year award they bestowed on you, as the Law Society of Kenya strikes you from their Roll of Honour and disbars you, I wonder what goes through your mind these days. Do you think of the 300,000 Kenyans displaced from their homes, their lives? Of the thousands still trapped in police stations, churches, any refuge they can find, across the country? Without food, water, toilets, blankets? Of fields ready for harvest, razed to the ground? Of granaries filled with rotting grain, because no one can get to them? Of the Nairobi slum residents of Kibera, Mathare, Huruma, Dandora, ringed by GSU and police, denied exit, or access to medical treatment and emergency relief, for the crime of being poor in Kenya ? I bet you haven't made it to Jamhuri Park yet. But I'm sure you saw the news pictures of poor Americans, packed like battery chickens into their stadiums, when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana . Imagine that here in Nairobi , Mr. Kivuitu. 75,000 Kenyans, crammed into a giant makeshift refugee camp. Our own Hurricane Kivuitu-Kibaki, driven by fire, rather than floods. By organized militia rather than crumbling levees. But the same root cause - the deep, colossal contempt of a tiny ruling class for the rest of humanity. Over 60% of our internal refugees are children. The human collateral damage of your decision. And now, imagine grief, Mr. Kivuitu. Grief so fierce, so deep, it shreds the muscle fibres of your heart. Violation so terrible, it grinds down the very organs of your body, forces the remnants through your kidneys, for you to piss out in red water. Multiply that feeling by every Kenyan who has watched a loved one slashed to death in the past week. Every parent whose child lies, killed by police bullets, in the mortuaries of Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret. Everyone who has run sobbing from a burning home or church, hearing the screams of those left behind. Every woman, girl, gang-raped. Do you sleep well these days, Mr. Kivuitu? I don't. I have nightmares. I wake with my heart pounding, slow tears trickling from the corners of my eyes, random phrases running through my head: Remember how we felt in 2002 ? It's all gone. (Muthoni Wanyeki, ED of Kenya Human Rights Commission, on the night of December 30th, 2007, after Kibaki was illegally sworn in as president). There is a crime here that goes beyond recrimination. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolise. (John Steinbeck, American writer, on the betrayal of internally displaced Americans, in The Grapes of Wrath) Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi.... kila siku tuwe na shukrani Justice be our shield and defender.... every day filled with thanksgiving" Lines from Kenya's national anthem I soothe myself back to patchy sleep with my mantra in these terrible days, as our country burns and disintegrates around us:

Courage. Courage comes. Courage comes from cultivating. Courage comes from cultivating the habit. Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing. Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions. (Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner). I wake with a sense of unbearable sadness. Please let it not be true..... Meanwhile, the man you named President cowers in the State House, surrounded by a cabal of hardline power brokers, and a bevy of sycophantic unseated Ministers and MPs, who jostle for position and succession. Who fuel the fires by any means they can, to keep themselves important, powerful, necessary. The smoke continues to rise from the torched swathes of Rift Valley, the gutted city of Kisumu, the slums of Nairobi and Mombasa. The Red Cross warns of an imminent cholera epidemic in Nyanza and Western Kenya , deprived for days now of electricity and water. Containers pile up at the Port of Mombasa, as ships, unable to unload cargo, leave still loaded. Uganda, Rwanda , Burundi, Southern Sudan, the DRC, all dependent on Kenyan transit for fuel and vital supplies, grind to a halt. A repressive regime rolls out its panoply of oppression against legitimate dissent. Who knew our police force had so many sleek, muscled, excellently- trained horses, to mow down protestors? Who guessed that in a city of perennial water shortages, we had high-powered water cannons to terrorize Kenyans off the streets? I am among the most fortunate of the fortunate. Not only am I still whole, alive, healthy, mobile; not only do I have food, shelter, transport, the safety of those I love; I have the gift of work. I have the privilege to be in the company of the most brilliant, principled, brave, resilient Kenyans of my generation. To contribute whatever I can as we organize, strategize, mobilize, draw on everything we know and can do, to save our country. I marvel at the sheer collective volume of trained intelligence, of skill, expertise, experience, in our meetings. At the ability to rise above personal tragedy - families still hostage in war zones, friends killed, homes overflowing with displaced relatives - to focus on the larger picture and envisage a solution. I listen to lawyers, economists, youth activists, humanitarians; experts on conflict, human rights, governance, disaster relief; to Kenyans across every sector and ethnicity, and I think: Is this what we have trained all our lives for? To confront this epic catastrophe, caused by a group of old men who have already sucked everything they possibly can out of Kenya , yet will cling until they die to their absolute power? You know these people too, Mr. Kivuitu. The principled, brave, resilient, brilliant Kenyans. The idealists who took seriously the words we sang as schoolchildren, about building the nation. Some of them worked closely with you, right through the election. Some called you friend. You don't even have the excuse that Kibaki, or his henchmen, might offer - that of inhabiting a world so removed from ours that they cannot fathom the reality of ordinary Kenyans. You know of the decades of struggle, bloodshed, faith and suffering that went into creating this fragile beautiful thing we called the "democratic space in Kenya." So you can imagine the ways in which we engage with the unimaginable. We coin new similes: lie low like a 16A (the electoral tally form returned by each constituency, many of which were altered or missing in the final count) We joke about the Kivuitu effect - which turns internationalists, pan-Africanists, fervent advocates for the dissolution of borders, into nationalists who cry at the first verse of the national anthem . Ee Mungu nguvu yetu Ilete baraka kwetu Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi Natukae na undugu Amani na uhuru Raha tupate na ustawi. O God of all creation Bless this our land and nation Justice be our shield and defender May we dwell in unity Peace and liberty Plenty be found within our borders. Rarely do we allow ourselves pauses, to absorb the enormity of our country shattered, in 7 days. We cry, I think, in private. At least I do. In public, we mourn through irony, persistent humor, and action. Through the exercise of patience, stamina, fortitude, generosity, that humble me to witness. Through the fierce relentless focus of our best energies towards challenges of stomach-churning magnitude. We tell the stories that aren't making it into the press: the retired general in Rift Valley sheltering 200 displaced families on his farm, the Muslim Medical Professionals offering free treatment to anyone injured in political protest. We challenge, over and over again, with increasing weariness, the international media coverage that presents this as "tribal warfare", "ethnic conflict", for an audience that visualises Africa through Hollywood: Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland, Blood Diamond. I wish you'd thought of those people, when you made the choice to betray them. I wish you'd drawn on their courage, their integrity, their clarity, when your own failed you. I wish you'd had the imagination to enter into the lives, the dreams, of 37 million Kenyans. But, as you've probably guessed by now, Mr. Kivuitu, this isn't really a letter to you at all. This is an attempt to put words to what cannot be expressed in words. To mourn what is too immense to mourn. A clumsy groping for something beyond the word 'heartbreak' . A futile attempt to communicate what can only be lived, moment by moment. This is a howl of anguish and rage. This is a love letter to a nation. This is a long low keening for my country. Shailja Patel KENYANS FOR PEACE, TRUTH AND JUSTICE STATEMENT FROM KENYAN CITIZENS, GOVERNANCE, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LEGAL ORGANIZATIONS

A country on the brink of tearing apart

Kenya is hurting. Sections of our great nation are aggrieved, while other sections are hanging collective heads in shame. The cohesiveness of our country has been tested. We are a hurting nation. Professional incompetence and negligence on the part of ECK has taken a heavy toll on the emotions of a nation. The emptiness and uncertainty created a vacuum which exposed how short we are of leaders. One lone GSU officer was caught on TV successfully pleading with a group of youths to keep off the streets and allow ECK to do their work. Our rulers went quiet when the country needed them most. It was heartening to see a few civilians and retires like Gen. Sumbweyo, Bethwell Kiplagat, etc come out and appeal for peace on TV. That was a mark of bravery and direction in the face of doubtful outcomes. These are private citizens who took it upon themselves to show direction due to a lacuna created by our mandated leaders’ inaction. It was shameful for shameless people like Mutula Kilonzo to be caught on air bargaining for positions and taking sides when selfish interests should have been postponed for a later and appropriate date. Shame. Carol Mutoko came out to bring together her listeners by deftly side-stepping the directive banning all “live” broadcasts. Between seven and one pm of Monday, she was the only news outlet telling the nation what was going on. She gave her listeners a shoulder to cry on. All the pent-up national emotions of anger, confusion, aghast, betrayal and thankfully hope found a valve through her all-morning vigil. She sounded scared too, and it was therefore a mark of bravery and leadership, to put her self and the station on the line when bigger media houses had been cowed into submission. All call-ins on KISS FM are recorded as a matter of policy and therefore, so she was not affected by the ruling. In the New Year, Carol portrayed leadership by being on air for a full day and preaching the message of peace. KISS FM also developed an advert with the same message for calm and patriotism. Other media houses followed suit in the course of the day. By Wednesday, she had taken her crusade to the next level-she was urging the media to blackout any politicians that were grandstanding instead of preaching peace. Talk of the need to heal the wounds caused by the acrimonious elections will dominate the airwaves in the next few weeks, but I find such a call hollow and insincere if it’s not accompanied with some mechanism of sorting out the real or imagined injustice that sparked this national disaster in the first place. I expect that ECK will come out and offer some sort of explanation to this fiasco.