Kenya: By-election blues

By-elections on Wednesday in five constituencies will test the fragile government of national unity.

The unity government took office in mid-April, after weeks of negotiations over the composition of the cabinet, which is the largest in Kenya’s history.  The government, like the parliament -- which is evenly divided between Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and its allies, President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) and its partners -- is prone to deadlock.  In an attempt to promote reconciliation, Kibaki and Odinga have toured parts of Kenya worst affected by the post-election violence, which left over 1,000 dead and more than 300,000 displaced.  Yet tensions remain high: security personnel for the two leaders have nearly come to blows at joint events, and the two sides are at odds over how to deal with the perpetrators of the violence.  Odinga favours a blanket amnesty. Kibaki, supported by the EU, rejects this approach.

In this lowering atmosphere, the by-elections have special significance.  ODM failed in its attempt to replace the Electoral Commission of Kenya in overseeing the polls, fuelling speculation among ODM supporters that the results might be manipulated.  The stakes are high: with parliament evenly divided, the ODM needs to retain the three seats it won in December -- two of its MPs were assassinated, and one was selected as speaker of parliament.  In one seat, the result was a tie; in the other, chaos on polling day has necessitated a rerun. 

A key factor in whether the ODM can retain its seats will be the ability of the various parties within the PNU to line up behind a single candidate.  In Embakasi, a suburb of Nairobi where the ODM victor was assassinated, the PNU appears to have achieved unity.  There is a risk that a PNU victory there, especially in tandem with PNU victories in more than half of the remaining seats, could spark fresh violence and charges of fraud, threatening the country’s shaky stability.