Kenya 2022 elections: Lessons for Zimbabwe

THE Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) deployed a team of seven observers drawn from the Zesn board, national taskforce and secretariat for an observation and learning mission to Kenya's 2022 general elections.

The mission sought to gain a deeper understanding of the socioeconomic and political contexts as well as election-related procedures and processes in Kenya. The team interacted with various stakeholders including domestic and regional election observer groups, civil society organisations as well as officials of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

The lessons learned from this observation mission will inform ongoing advocacy efforts by Zesn to help various stakeholders electoral agencies in Zimbabwe including the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to strengthen the management and conduct credible elections in the country.

Kenyan voters elected the president and a deputy president, county governors and running mates, members of the Senate, representatives of the National Assembly (including women county representatives) and members of county assemblies.

This election was the country’s sixth set of general elections since the end of the one-party state in 1991 and the third set of general elections under the 2010 Constitution of Kenya.

Kenya organised its first post-independence election in 1969. Since then, the country has had 11 general elections. Unfortunately, political conflict, social revolt, ethnic rivalries and opportunistic crime have been entrenched during elections, especially since the inception of multiparty politics in 1991.

This has resulted in the loss of lives, property and internal displacement of persons. In March 2018, the then leaders of the governing party and the main opposition (Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga publicly) had a “handshake” showing their commitment to working together, which cooled political tensions for some time.

The 2010 Constitution oversaw the creation of a Bill of Rights that strengthened civil and political rights.

The following laws and acts of parliament are key components of Kenya’s electoral framework. The Kenya Constitution 2010; the Elections Act, 2011; the Political Parties Act, 2011; the Campaign Financing Act, 2013; the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, 2011; and the Election Offences Act, 2016.

These laws prescribe how elections are conducted, oversight of election expenses and organisational structuring of the national election monitoring body as well as the mechanisms for the registration and operations of political parties.

The August 9 2022 election was particularly important as it represented a critical transfer of presidential power as Kenyans elected a new president, as the incumbent president had served his constitutional two-term limit and was not eligible for re-election.

On Election Day, our team visited 45 polling stations in eight constituencies in Nairobi County and one just outside Nairobi and observed opening, voting and counting. All activities were conducted on a strictly nonpartisan basis.

The team observed a number of notable positive elements during voting, particularly the transparency, peacefulness and orderliness of the voting process. Overall, Election Day was generally peaceful and orderly save for isolated incidents of violence. Zesn commends the IEBC for extending the right to vote to prisoners and Kenyans in the Diaspora in selected countries. The IEBC staff were very professional in their conduct and consistently followed the opening, polling and closing procedures at all the polling stations that Zesn visited.

Lessons learnt

The IEBC generally ran the Election Day processes very well. The commission granted the public and all electoral stakeholders’ access to their portal where 34A forms from polling stations were uploaded. This was a very good move to increase transparency and accountability in the electoral process; however more thinking and discussion should be done to determine the possibility of information hacking and other forms of abuse and measures to prevent such scenarios.

The results transmission and tabulation process also went smoothly at first, but suffered a roll back which led to the non-acceptability of the official results, with more than half of the IEBC commissioners claiming that the process had been “opaque” and that the chairman of the commission had hijacked the process leading to the announcement of results and had done so unilaterally.

Subsequently, Odinga filed a case with the Supreme Court of Kenya to challenge William Ruto’s 50,49% win.

The lesson for Zimbabwe is that Presidential election disputes should be legally and peacefully pursued through the right channels, and all election related disputes or concerns must be addressed in accordance with the law.

The media was allowed in polling stations and to take pictures in Kenya and to a great extent, this enhanced the integrity of the E-day process; however, there must be some form of control to ensure order in polling stations in such scenarios.

Polling officials were also largely female and young people, a great move to promote the participation of women and young people, who are often sidelined in electoral processes.

Kenya accredited a lot of local and foreign observers including those from the European Union and other international observers as a way of increasing transparency and accountability.

The Electoral Commission made the observer accreditation process extremely easy. Observers did not have to physically present themselves for the application process, and the process was done free of charge.

The major lesson to Zimbabwe is that the more an electoral management body opens up to observers the higher the process is considered to be credible by both local and international stakeholders.

Kenyans in the Diaspora voted for the President at the embassies and consulates of selected countries namely Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, South Africa, South Sudan, Germany, United Kingdom, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Canada and the United States.

The lesson learnt from this is that the Kenyan example may be considered on how to enfranchise citizens in the Diaspora, starting with countries where Zimbabwe has the highest number of citizens which include countries like South Africa and the United Kingdom. For a start, voting may be restricted to the Presidential elections only, just like in Kenya.

Kenyan prisoners are estimated to comprise an average of 50 000 persons, who are citizens of the country, are over 18 years of age and therefore have a right to vote.

This privilege is however restricted to the Presidential vote only. There were 10 443 prisoners registered to vote in the 2022 elections. The Constitution of Zimbabwe under section 67 provides the right to vote to all Zimbabweans citizens who have attained the age of 18.

However this right is currently not being enjoyed by eligible voters who are incarcerated. In 2015, Zimbabwe’s prison population was estimated to be close to 19 000 with over 90% of these being adults. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission needs to take a leaf from Kenyan book in order to facilitate voting by prisoners and prison staff who may be on duty during elections by setting up voting facilities within prisons

Civil Society Organisations in Kenya operating as consortiums conducted a number of situation rooms. The Election Situation Room acted as an early warning system which helped bring awareness to electoral malpractices and escalating the same to the relevant authorities for redress.

In any election, the media is there to inform and educate the nation on electoral and related issues.

The media must strive to cover all the contesting parties and candidates equally so as to widen options for the electorate rather than only focusing on popular parties and candidates.

The role of social media is paramount in electoral processes for purposes of information dissemination and churning out civic and voter education. In Kenya concerns were raised about limited media coverage for smaller parties and less popular candidates. Additional concerns were around abuse of social media, instances of misinformation and disinformation were reportedly rampant.

Covid-19 procedures were not systematically adhered to as many voters were not observing social distancing, sanitising or washing of hands with soap and running water which was provided for at every polling station. Voters' ability to identify their correct polling stations could have improved with adequate signage or posting of voters names outside their polling stations, as was witnessed at some polling stations in Nairobi.

A lot of anxiety and impatience was noted as the country waited for the Presidential election results. The electoral law prescribes that presidential election results should be proclaimed within seven day after the closing of polls. Within this period citizens need to be kept informed of what will be happening to avoid an information blackout which may lead to lead to anxiety which in turn can easily degenerate into mistrust and frustration.

Civic and voter education in Kenya seems to have not been comprehensively done with funding challenges being cited by both the IEBC and other stakeholders including CSOs as part of the reason why. This could have partly affected the turnout which was relatively low at 56,1%.

The lesson for Zimbabwe is that there is need to treat an election as a process and not an event. The release of funding for elections towards the voting day gives electoral management bodies limited time for adequately preparing for an election.

Political parties fielded agents in 68,3% of the polling stations nationwide. The two major parties had political party agent presence in more than 90% of the polling stations with the smaller parties having significantly less presence.

There is need for political parties to deploy agents in all polling stations to improve transparency and trust in the polling process. The conduct of the security agents before and during the Election Day in Kenya was also excellent and should be commended.

The use of PVTs in election supports improvements in transparency of the results tabulation process and verifiability of the final result. A Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) is a proven methodology employed by nonpartisan citizen observers to independently verify official election results. A PVT is based on systematic assessment of voting and counting processes.

As Zimbabwe prepares for the 2023 harmonised elections it is important to consider lessons from the Kenyan elections whose adoption may support improvement of the conduct of the elections in Zimbabwe.