Pandemics and other health crises are predicted to become more common in the future. This is likely to pose a variety of threats to electoral integrity. This article argues that, by learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, the negative impacts on elections of viral outbreaks and other emergencies can be mitigated in the future. It […]
Periodic, free, fair, and credible elections are one of the undisputed principles
of liberal democracy. Kenya embraced multiparty democracy at independence
in 1963 and has since used periodic elections as a means of selecting leaders to
office. Focusing on Kenya’s national election held on 8 August 2017, this paper
evaluates the fundamental requirements for a free, fair, and credible election. To
this end, the paper assesses Kenya’s electoral legal framework and its application
during the 2017 national elections. In addition, the paper uses primary data by
Afrobarometer to explore public opinion on the performance of the Independent
Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), political parties, and the media
towards free, fair, and credible elections. This study finds that despite some
institutional challenges, Kenya’s 2017 national elections were conducted
under a comprehensive electoral legal framework and met the threshold of free,
fair, and credible as affirmed by the citizenry through Afrobarometer’s public
opinion survey. The positive assessment of universally accepted electoral practice
indicators by most of the people affirms that, notable challenges notwithstanding,
Kenya’s 2017 national elections were free, fair, and credible, thus endorsing the
legitimacy and authority of elected leaders. This argument is cognisant of the
election outcome as a fundamental factor in shaping public perception of freeness
and fairness in the electoral process.
A large literature has described the years after independence from colonial
rule as a period of ‘departicipation’. Africa’s new rulers – whether driven by
personal venality or a sincere commitment to nation-building – swiftly gave
up on elections, or at best held elections that, by denying choice, left violence
as the central dynamic of African politics. This article draws on the cases
of Kenya, Ghana and Uganda in the late 1960s to argue that the emphasis
often placed on the ‘speed and ease’ of this process has been overstated.
Instead, Africa’s politicians and civil servants valued elections as a means to
educate and discipline the public, even as they feared their possible outcomes.
Building on a literature that focuses on the individual experience of elections
rather than the presence or absence of parties, we argue that the rhetoric of
politicians and civil servants shows that they saw elections as ‘exercises’ – a
revealing term – that would train and test their new citizens. Yet this is not
the whole story: voters understood their participation in their own terms
and played a role in how early experiments with elections played out. The
political closures of these years were real, but their course was unplanned
and contingent, shaped partly by popular involvement. These points are not
only of historical value, but also provide important insights into the extent to
which contemporary elections are instruments of elite power or the drivers
of democratisation.
The influence of money in elections has become an important ingredient in
determining electoral outcomes worldwide. The use of money in political
activities has adversely affected the nature of public policy, governance,
competition, the rule of law, transparency, equity and democracy. Although
there are laws, policies and guidelines governing the use of money during
elections, there is little political will to implement them. This paper examines
how money, or the lack thereof, determines electoral outcomes in multi-party
democracies with a focus on Kenya, employing both the hydraulic theory and
the push-and-pull paradigm. The study found that in most cases, victory in
elections follows those with money; in other cases, it is the potential for victory
that attracts money from self-interested donors. The study calls on electoral
bodies such as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to
honour their mandate and demand compliance with set laws and regulations
in a bid to entrench governance and create a level playing field for contestants.
In 2008, Kenya hovered on the brink of a war arising from the political violence that followed the general elections. In reportage akin to that of the infamous Rwandan genocide of 1994, the Kenyan media pitched the country’s different ethnoreligious groups against each other. The result was a wanton loss of lives and property, as […]
This paper examines the operations of political parties in Kenya and South Africa and provides an analysis of how such operations have become drivers of election violence. The paper contends that as a result of the structure of political parties and how they operate, they have contributed to the violence that has become an endemic […]
