Tensions Rise Ahead of Kenya’s Election as Mysterious Death Fuels Mistrust Some suspect official was murdered because he oversaw technology to protect against rigging By Matina Stevis
NAIROBI, Kenya—Less than three months ago, Kenya was coasting to its most uneventful election in years, with commentators predicting a walkover for incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Now, the contest—and the country’s mood—are on a knife-edge. The murder of an election official, a proliferation of fake news and the activities of secretive political technology companies have raised tensions in a country that saw over 1,000 people die and hundreds of thousands displaced in election violence a decade ago.
On Monday, Chris Msando, the senior official in charge of Kenya’s electoral information systems, was found dead, his body strafed with the signs of torture.
On Tuesday, the opposition called for an investigation while Mr. Kenyatta promised authorities would get to the bottom of the assassination.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.K.’s Scotland Yard offered assistance—but the offer hasn’t been accepted, according to people familiar with the situation. The police declined to comment.
As the Aug. 8 election approaches, few in this East African nation of 48 million believe answers are forthcoming, while many see an ominous warning.
“Whatever the reality is, many believe he was killed because he would have made sure that anti-rigging technology would work,” says Nic Cheeseman, an African democracy expert at Birmingham University. “His murder has struck fear into independently minded electoral officials.”
The top candidates in this year’s presidential contest—Mr. Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga —are the same leaders who faced off in the 2007 election. Polls have now narrowed dramatically, giving Mr. Kenyatta a thin 3% lead with 8% of voters undecided.
Both men are pledging to spend on development projects and stamp out corruption, but tribal divisions continue to frame Kenyan politics. Mr. Kenyatta says his leadership transcends tribe, though he is dependent on support from his Kikuyu tribe, the nation’s largest, and its allies; Mr. Odinga says his Luo tribespeople and other friendly smaller tribes have been neglected.
Mr. Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto were accused of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court after the 2007 violence pitted tribes against one another. Those charges were later dropped.
In the decade that followed, Kenya won plaudits as Africa’s rising economic hub and a flag-bearer of democracy and free markets on the continent; hard-won achievements that have made the country’s elections more consequential.
The candidates are vying to control billions of dollars in infrastructure investment from China’s government and Western private-sector companies to build roads, bridges and power plants.
“The electoral outcome will determine the allocation of tens of millions of dollars in contracts and business opportunities to the candidates and their allies,” says Murithi Mutinga of the International Crisis Group. “Any violent fallout risks spilling over across its borders.”
The electoral competition has never been more intense or crowded: in the presidential and local polls to be held Tuesday, 1,880 seats will be contested by 14,500 candidates, a 15% rise since 2013’s election.
Kenya’s western allies, concerned about the prospect of violence, have poured $90 million in election assistance, deploying hundreds of international monitors and helping fund some 6,000 local observers in a mission to be led by former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Tensions on the street have been aggravated by an explosion of aggressive social media posts and fake news. Some spurious videos have carried the logos of CNN International and BBC World, claiming Mr. Kenyatta is set to win the election. Both organizations said the videos were fabricated.
Facebook on Thursday took out a full-page ad in major Kenyan newspapers with guidelines on how to identify fake news. One election ad on social media site Instagram warned: “Kenya needs Uhuru—Violence needs Raila.”
Some blame the spike in negative social-media advertising on Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining company hired by Mr. Kenyatta’s party. Cambridge Analytica also assisted both the Trump and Brexit campaigns.
Cambridge Analytica declined to comment on the allegations, as did representatives for the government.
The opposition has responded by hiring Washington-based Aristotle, Inc., a technology provider to political campaigns that says it has been used by every successful U.S. presidential campaign since Ronald Reagan’s .
Digital campaigning matters more in Kenya, which Google says has one of Africa’s most active social-media communities, than almost anywhere else on the continent. The country’s communications authority says 90% have a mobile phone and about 44% of those are smartphones.
But it is the death of Mr. Msando that has sent the most shock waves through the country, undermining faith in the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and its new electoral system designed to stop ballot rigging and puncture the perception of electoral fraud. The new system and other parts of running this election will cost Kenya half a billion dollars.
The commission says it has ensured that the electronic electoral systems haven’t been compromised after Mr. Msango’s murder, but it may be too late to change the minds of skeptical voters who feel the results can’t be trusted.
In Nairobi’s sprawling Kangemi slum, home to 100,000 people mostly from the Luhya tribe traditionally affiliated to Mr. Odinga’s Luos, voters are angry.
“We feel rejected, but we have to vote,” said Tom Omari, a 39-year-old engineer, wearing the green shirts favored by Mr. Odinga’s party. “We know that three times Raila [Mr. Odinga] was robbed,” he added, repeating Mr. Odinga’s claim that previous elections have been rigged by Mr. Kenyatta. “This time we need change.”
In the city center, Kenyans who have benefited from recent years’ economic growth say they are in no mood for political upheaval: “I am voting Jubilee, Kenyatta is my man, he looks after us,” said 26-year-old Njeri Mwangi, a manicurist at an upmarket Nairobi salon.
It is this cocktail of opposition anger and Mr. Kenyatta’s determination to hold on to power that is making Nairobi increasingly tense, and observers uneasy.
“We hope that whoever loses—and someone will have to lose—that if they don’t like the outcome they’ll go to the courts,” a senior Western diplomat said: “And not the streets.”
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