The then ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu (right) before he announced results of the 2007 presidential election. Photo/FILE
By BERNARD NAMUNANE bnamunane@ke.nationmedia.comPosted Wednesday, March 2 2011 at 20:51
The disbanded electoral commission is to blame for the 2007 presidential election results that plunged Kenya into two months of violence, a leaked US cable says.
According to the cable dispatched by US envoy Michael Ranneberger to his Washington bosses, the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) officials caved in to pressure from both the Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to manipulate vote tallies. Violence broke out soon after.
“The ECK became a victim of partisan political interests during the election, and the ECK’s failure as an institution constitutes a dark spot on Kenya’s democratic evolution.
“We do not think it will ever be possible to tell definitively who actually won the election. This is due in part to the compromise of election officials and election-related ballots and forms, but also because our estimated number of ‘ghost votes’ (i.e. stuffed ballots) from both sides easily exceeded President Kibaki’s margin of victory,” the cable sent on January 17, 2008 — at the height of the post poll violence — says.
The cable, an outcome of the analysis of votes received from the ECK at national and constituency levels, reports from observers and media compilations, however says that neither President Kibaki nor Mr Odinga could have clearly won the elections even if the polls were fair and transparent.
“This flies in the face of the position adopted by the ODM and others as mantra: That the election was brazenly stolen by Kibaki’s ECK insiders at the last moment and that Raila should have won by a wide margin.
“It also contradicts any perception or conviction within the Kibaki camp that the latter clearly won the race. The fact of the matter is, as ECK chairman Kivuitu said publicly on January 1 – I do not know if Kibaki won the election.”
While the manipulation of the election results at the KICC was in favour of President Kibaki, the cable says, both presidential candidates were beneficiaries of vote rigging at constituency level, making it difficult to tell who actually won.
During the elections, President Kibaki was declared the winner with 4,583,358 votes against Mr Odinga’s 4,352,880.
The cable says that ECK officials at the KICC altered the results from constituencies such that the total presidential votes cast were 459,100 more than those for MPs.
However, it says, these extra votes could not have been meant for President Kibaki alone because his victory margin was 230,478 votes.
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