Sunday afternoon, December 30
“The country is quiet, an uneasy calm, all waiting the announcement of the results” they say on KTN right now. That is exactly what it is like for everyone including me right now, I’m anxious. We’ve been sitting around the house the last 2 days, not really going out at all, watching movies, hanging out, reading books, but we’re all a little distracted and keep checking the news. We didn’t even go to church this morning. I can see outside to the park which is usually filled with people on Sundays, hanging out after church, enjoying the day. It’s beautiful out today, but the park is basically empty.
I can’t call anyone to figure out what to do with our travel plans that are supposed to take place tomorrow morning but probably will be delayed at least or maybe canceled because the country’s unsafe right now. We were texted last night by our program leaders to tell us that they and the US embassy advise us to “stay indoors until the conclusion of the electoral process and calm returns” Maybe we can still go, just later, I hope. Plus we have no water at our house right now and the electricity has been going on and off a few times these past few days. This isn’t anything too weird, our water and electricity go off from time to time, it’s just weird that it keeps happening while we’re all sitting around waiting. There were riots happening all over the outer parts of the city, like Kibera, there were a bunch of pictures in the paper this morning and a lot of rioting in Kisumu and other cities. Downtown Nairobi, my cousin Maxwell who’s over visiting right now said, there is no one, except police and people causing trouble. Probably a little like I saw yesterday, except maybe even emptier. They did show people at Nakumatt though, probably the only place open stocking up on food. We have a ton left over from Christmas, the dishes are just piling up in the sink since we have no water. I was with my sisters yesterday when I was in town, today though they told me, definitely don’t go downtown today, it’s not safe.
Here is what’s happened so far. The results started coming in since election day 3 days ago, Raila was ahead all along, then he got ahead by more. He was ahead by over a million votes at one point (a huge lead considering an estimated 7-8 million people voted). Then all of a sudden, Kibaki, the current president who hasn’t been ahead in the polls at all leading up to the election caught up, then he caught up more. And now there is only a difference of 20-40,000 votes between them-supposedly. And that’s a very big supposedly. There are 8 provinces in Kenya. The winner is the winner of the popular vote, none of this electoral college stuff. Raila led in 6 of the provinces, Kibaki led in basically 1 ½-Central Province-where the Kikuyu-his tribe-comes from and Eastern Province where he and Kalonzo-the 3rd presidential candidate split. So anyway, Raila had a huge lead and it doesn’t make any sense why Kibaki should suddenly get so close. This is why people are really tense right now and why riots are going on all over the place, and why I can’t go to Mombasa right now. My cousin Maxwell is visiting right now and said, “If they announce Raila is the president, there will be peace. Guaranteed. If Kibaki is announced, it’ll be a weeklong war at least. The youths will go out and riot” I agree, I really think that’s what’ll happen according to everything that’s happened up to this point. We were talking about how it would make a lot more sense and Kibaki could probably get away with it if he were actually more well-matched with Raila, but it’s kind of obvious that Raila was way ahead and then mysteriously lost a bunch of votes. Of the 185 Parliamentary seats, Raila’s party, ODM took 95 of them, Kibaki, 36 and Kalonzo 15, then the others from the other littler parties. I could go on and on with other statistics.
Being here has taught me a lot about how the current president is completely at the advantage and has all the power to rig the votes if he wants to. And even though people don’t like it, they know it happens and accept it, but I’m not so sure this time they will accept it. It’s corruption which is all this country has dealt with in the government since independence. That’s people’s big complaint against Kibaki, that he hasn’t dealt with corruption like he promised, there have been a few really big corruption scandals during his presidency and Raila really took advantage of talking about that throughout his campaign. (I haven’t written at all about the hilarious “Domo Domo” campaign ads that have basically become an everyday term for us throughout this campaign.) “There is nothing that he [Raila] can do, the government is more powerful than him.” It’s true.
I’m sitting here in the dining room with my computer listening to this ODM guy talking at a press conference right now showing that there isn’t any actual documentation about a ton of these votes. He’s saying there are numbers for people’s votes for president, but don’t have any documentation of these same votes on parliamentary candidates-proof that they were just made up. They’re saying that there isn’t actual documentation of a lot of these numbers in different districts that have mysteriously changed, that the numbers were just simply changed to give Kibaki more votes. Now there is a lady praying for the country on the news. Maxwell goes, “If we don’t have food in the house now, we’d better go shopping. No food, no airtime for the next two weeks if you don’t go get it now. Can’t you see, now they’re praying. You know they’re getting ready to announce and it’s going to be bad.” I know he’s joking…kind of-I mean we can’t go out of the house right now.
Anyway, check it on the international news. It’s pretty anxious. So long, Mombasa…I don’t think I’d be too welcome there right now. Kenya is a peaceful country, but it’s a very precarious, fragile peace we rest on. I’ve heard this over and over since being here, and I’m really understanding now what is meant by that.
6:30ish- after watching drama take place for hours on TV and watching electoral commissioners come out and say they saw numbers being changed with their own eyes Kibaki “won” and was waiting at State House to be sworn in immediately. I don’t know what really happened, but now we hear there are huge protests throughout the whole country taking place. So much for going outside anytime soon it sounds like.
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