Kenya: Big Changes on the Horizon
You may have heard that on Wednesday, August 4, a historic event will be taking place: a referendum deciding the acceptance or rejection of a new constitution for Kenya.
The Green side (aka ‘Yes camp’) is headed by President Mwai Kibaki and supported by Kenya prime minister Raila Odinga and much of the parliament. The Red side (aka ‘No camp’) is led by higher education minister William Ruto and has significant support from the church. The proposed constitution limits the sweeping powers of Kenya’s presidency, creating a second chamber of government and giving greater power to local leaders. Contentious issues include the creation of a land commission, retention of Kadhi (Islamic) courts, and a clause which allows abortions if a pregnancy endangers the life or health of the mother. Opinion polls indicate that most people support the proposed constitution.
The number one fear surrounding the vote is a renewal of ethnic tensions and violence in Kenya. In fact, there has been limited violence surrounding the upcoming referendum. The flashpoints are in areas where neighboring ethnic groups have different voting preferences. Any trouble will likely be in the northern Rift Valley, where many Kikuyu are voting Yes and Kalenjin are voting No. Like many other conflicts that have come before, the real issue at stake is land. Some feel that the Kikuyu, Kenya’s most populous ethnic group, were unfairly allocated land in the Rift Valley at independence. Kalenjin and Kikuyu members clashed fiercely in the last election. The droughts of 2009 further exacerbated ethnic tensions.
The upcoming referendum differs from the 2008 violence in a number of ways. The 2007 vote was highly controversial with widespread suspicion of election fraud. This time around, the government is much more prepared and has deployed a good deal of military. Most of the people we’ve talked to are expecting a peaceful vote with limited and isolated outbreaks of violence. No events are predicted in the Nyanza province, where we are based. We have yet to hear of any NGO staff being evacuated from areas other than the Rift Valley, and most are simply limiting activities around the dates of the referendum. Still, we’re being cautious and with the Earth Institute, MDG Centre in Nairobi, home embassies, and Millennium Village Project, will continue to monitor the situation and act on an evacuation plan if circumstances require it.
Potential chaos and evacuations aside, it’s a fascinating time to be here. An incredible amount of innovation is coming out of East Africa, and particularly Kenya, and even more particularly, Nairobi. Some may recall that I was involved in mapping and monitoring incidences – collapsed bridged, closed schools, lack of water and medicine – following the earthquake in Chile. This was done remotely from New York using an tool called Ushahidi, an incredible platform which serves to aggregate media, twitter, and eye-witness reports around an issue – often disaster relief – on an online map. The key to the take-off of Ushahidi is that location based incidences are brought together in one forum, in almost real-time, which then enables NGOs, media, and government to take action on real needs. The birthplace of this popular tool that’s being used in Haiti, Iraq, Chile, Washington DC, Ethiopia, South Africa, New York, and elsewhere? Kenya. Ushahidi was developed in Nairobi to report violence stemming from the 2007 election. As explained on the Ushahidi website:
The website was used to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phone. This initial deployment of Ushahidi had 45,000 users in Kenya, and was the catalyst for us realizing there was a need for a platform based on it, which could be use by others around the world.
For the August 4th vote, Ushahidi is being used once again in its country of origin. This time, to monitor incidences around the referendum. The website is up at Uchaguzi (meaning ‘election’ in Swahili) and is likely to be one of the best — and first — sources of eye-witness reports surrounding security issues, voter issues, and defamation. It’s odd to wish for a project to not receive any reports, but here’s to hoping that these incident categories are sparingly used.
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Note: If you are in Kenya, you can report incidences by sending a message to 3018, an email to reports@uchaguzi.co.ke, a tweet with the hashtag #uchaguzi, or by filling out a web based form. Remember, there’s also a category for “positive events”










