 Good afternoon everybody. My name is Dr. Barry Kulfer and I'm the director of research here at the IAEA. I'm very pleased to welcome you for this afternoon's webinar. We're really happy to be joined today by Njokke Womaye, a sister professor in the International Relations Department at the United States International University, Africa, whom the leaders have been able to take time out of a schedule to speak to us. I'm excited for a couple of reasons. This is the first event in the IAEA's inaugural EU Africa series, and what better place to start than looking at Kenya and looking at it with Njokke. I'm also really delighted that Njokke and I were students together during our PhD at Cambridge and I'm unsurprised to see the great heights to which Professor Womaye has risen, but it's just really nice for me to be meeting here in this context and on this important moment to inaugurate what I think is going to be a really important part of the IAEA's work going forward. Professor Womaye is going to speak to us for about 20 minutes or so, and then we will go as ever to the all-important questions and answers with our audience, so please get your questions ready. You'll be able to join the discussion as ever using the Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see on your screens. Please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you, and we'll get as many of them as we possibly can once the presentation is finished. A reminder that today's presentation and Q&A are both on the record, and please, as ever, feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IAEA. Before handing the floor over to Professor Womaye, I will briefly introduce her. Joakie Womaye, PhD, is assistant professor in the International Relations Department at the United States International University of Africa. Joakie was a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Governance and Human Rights at the Politics and International Studies Department at the University of Cambridge, where she completed her PhD in Politics and International Studies as a prestigious Gates scholar in 2017. Previously, Dr. Womaye was a Peace, Security and Development Scholar at the African Leadership Centre at King's College in London. She's published book chapters and articles with Oxford University Press, Routledge and Zed books on International Intervention, the International Criminal Court, Mediation and Violence Using Postcolonial and Decolonial Approaches to name only a few. Joakie, it's a real pleasure. I pass you the floor for about 20 minutes. Looking forward. Thank you. Thank you, Barry. It's really indeed such a pleasure doing this together with IEA and also, of course, with my longtime friend and comrade, Barry. So, as Barry I think has introduced me, I am right now in Nairobi after Cambridge where I work as a lecturer here in Nairobi in the United States National University, but I'm also a fellow at the Wissenschafts colleague in Berlin. My presentation, I am going to be talking about Kenyan elections, which I'm sure most of you were following last year that happened on Aga 7 last year and also in terms of what were the stakes involved, what were the implications of the win and what are the continued implications of the Kenyan elections last year, especially also for the European Union and its relations with not just Kenya, but also probably East Africa and Africa. If we had to think about Kenya and what happened with, I'm going to come to the elections, but I thought I would first give a small historical context to the Kenyan elections of 2022, August last year. So, this was the fourth election after the constitution, we passed a new constitution in 2010 and Kenyan now, we would call it a growing democracy. Of course, it's growing a lot of, lots of pains because we have a history, a long history of divisive politics, largely along ethnic lines since, and it's been for a long time, we could even say since the colony of the British colonial occupation, which ended in 1963, because the British, of course, I mean, divided groups of people who, different nations, if you go even back to Berlin, what happened in 1884, the division of different types, different nations across borders, and so with that, we inherited the crisis of what many African countries have, what I would call the crisis of the nation state. So, unlike what we have seen in Ireland or in Europe, of course now with globalization and immigration, things are changing, we have a very different idea of the nation state, which half the time really doesn't exist. And so with that legacy of colonialism and also, of course, the British occupation, we've always, the state has always been contested along the different nationalities that exist, and these groups are forced to live in one country called Kenya or Uganda or wherever, or Somalia, or I mean Somalia despite of course being one big nation and one ethnic nation, like what is happening right now in Ethiopia, again, different nations existing with the idea of the modern European state. And so that legacy continues to dog lots of African countries, and elections are usually that space of recontestation, again, contestation of the state by the different nations. And so that crisis continues, the crisis of the nation state. And so 2007 and eight, we had violence, which was quite probably unprecedented previously, the kind of violence we saw was during the colonial period, again, the British colonialism. So 2007 also, we had violence again because of the elections. As I said, elections are a time for contestation again, back to the nation state crisis, because it's the different nations coming to vote. And so this led to, of course, an intervention after the election, intervention, whether it was the International Criminal Court, mediation by Kofi Annan and others, and eventually to resolve that crisis. In the long term, we needed to have a new constitutional disposition that would address these divisions, divisions, especially along ethnicity or the different nations that exist, and also institutional reform, because lots of violence was committed by organizations like the police. There was a lot of also need for judicial reforms, corruption, but also reducing the power of the president, who was quite powerful. So the passing of the 2010 constitution was also a very critical juncture in the development of this constitutional democracy in Kenya. But elite fragmentation and co-optation continued despite our very good constitution in Kenya, it seemed to have one of the best constitutions in Africa, only maybe another country with a very good constitution in South Africa, the Kenyan one also has been seen to be pretty good after 2010. But despite a good constitution, implementation is a problem. It has not really solved those issues that it intended to solve. But as we say, democracy is so gradual and sometimes they are so slow. So increased, there's continued increased elite fragmentation and co-optation, largely driven by individual interests for power. So this has encouraged very weak political parties and so lacking, which lack stable ideological stands. So unlike what you may have, for instance, in Ireland or in greater Europe, you know, with very clear ideological, if you look at the spectrum, the left and the right, and you can tell, you can see how clear that is. So in Kenya, it's quite difficult. I'm actually right now teaching a class in political science. And like I think two weeks ago, we were talking about political ideology, and it's very, very hard. Even when we start thinking which parties on the left or on the right, like in Kenya, and not just in Kenya, in many, many African countries, maybe apart from the countries that are driven by liberation movements like South Africa, the next door here, Tanzania. But for us, it's very hard, even when you look at. So most of these parties are very weak in their formation. In fact, somebody called them vehicles. We can't call them political parties because it's something you enter to drop you. It's like a, it's like a bus that you get in and drops you to the next stop, and you can decide to pick another bus, or you know, or drop that new or, you know, get rid of that bus and get another one and put a new name for the bus. As long as it can get you to win the election. So weak political parties which lack stable ideological stance. And so they are all playing half the time they're playing musical chairs, as you see party elites unite, they unite with their former enemies, and then they break again, and then they unite with new friends. It's almost like a game, you know, so Kenyan politics, largely because it is personality driven around these ethnic nations that we are talking about. So it's about making coalitions that can help you win. And so if you can get, if you can get the tyranny of numbers, the numbers from your ethnic nation, and then you get a coalition with the other big group, you're good to go, you win an election. But so this has been the contest of the before the 2002 election. Hence we had 82 political parties, can you imagine. I mean, Canada is not such a small country, of course, it's double the size of Great Britain, but still a population of 50 million people, 82 political parties. Of course, largely probably only three of these political parties are big enough. Probably you can put the slide on the musical chairs and you can see those political parties there. And how like this jubilee you can see it's on both sides and how it moved to this other side of ODM and the blue voters. That's the ODM side led by Rayla Odinga. And then the other side was led by William Ruto. Kenyan Kwanza, as you can see, Kenyan Kwanza just means Kenyan first. Kwanza means first in Kiswahili. And Jokia, you might have your slides up. Yes, yes. Yeah, if you can make it happen. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, sorry. I didn't know that. No problem. So the slide with the many political parties, the next, that one, musical chairs. So the previous one. Yeah, musical chairs, that's, so this, so because of those weak political parties fragmentation, as you can see, like I was just giving the example of this jubilee party, they read a logo with two hands, two people clasping their hands. And how it moves, it has moved from one side to another, because these were the two leading coalitions. Also, it's very hard to win an election now without the coalitions. And so, so with that political parties, as you can see, are, it's as I was saying, it's like playing musical chairs, you become friends with this one, you break up, you leave, you join the next. So we don't have stable parties based on any ideology. You'll find both all parties will have kind of, they'll have what you would see in left parties as the advocate for maybe strong government, and also what you would see in more Libertarian and liberal parties like individual rights but not quite, like for instance maybe they wouldn't support rights for LGBTQ but you know, so they're all it's like a mishmash of everything, but we don't really have I can't call jubilee or the ones we had like this as a meal in blue, like a left party, though it seemed more left or the guys in yellow called Kenakwanza also a right, it was still right wing with very conservative ideas but also very left because they supported the poor. And so because of that, as I think the point I was trying to make is how, how fractured our political parties are, and it becomes very hard to think through them, even ideologically and very weak. So with that, of course with the next slide you can see, these were the leading contenders. That is William Ruto, and, and Rayla Odinga, and, and then on one side that the two in blue is, is the former president Kenyatta with Rayla Odinga. So Odinga now, who was the enemy or the was, they were against each other in the last election of 2017 with Kenyatta, they became best of friends in this election. And so despite him being kind of the opposition candidate, he had the support of the government the establishment and the deputy president who is this William Ruto on the left became the, he allied with the big billboards, became the kind of the leading, or rather he was, he looked like the person in opposition, despite him being in government. So, so that's, so that's what, so you can see those, even how, how much they invest, they invested in, in, in, in election campaigning. I think when I lived in the UK, I never saw, you know, people campaigning on billboards, despite, despite elections. So, despite the elections, I think that we, we, we saw when we, when we lived in the UK. So, but you can see, this is also part of the problem we are seeing with the context of our elections. So one of the things in the 2022 elections, not just in Kenya, I mean, not just 2022, but also the previous elections that have characterized our elections is high stakes and big money, which is a big problem. So Kenyan elections, though they are largely free, free, but you know, like opposition politicians, you'll not find them being arrested or, you know, being prevented from campaigning like what has happened in Uganda, or Tanzania. It's largely free, though fair is a bit contested. So Kenyan elections are largely free, but the most expensive in the region, because they are dominated by personalities, they're ethnic followers, and big money. And the challenge with that it encourages only rich families, and this time in Kenya, that is also common in South Africa called tender renewers. So people who make money through government tenders, you know. And most of the time it's politicians and their families or people connected to politicians. So, so our politics over time, especially after that 2010 constitution, it has become largely transactional, very transactional, because of the big money and big stakes involved. And part of the reason also why there's big money and high stakes is also because our elections tend to be very, our politicians are paid a lot of money, $10,000 a month. Can you imagine in a country where that 6% of people earn $57 a month, you know, they live below the poverty line. So there's a group of people who are $10,000, and it's public money. So it's very, very sad. But because of that, so people who are never interested in politics are suddenly interested in politics and are willing to invest anything. So Kenyan elections are also found to be some of the most expensive elections in Africa. I mean, I mean, one of the countries with the most expensive elections in Africa. And there's a research conducted last year by one of the political scientists and it found that to be a member of parliament $220,000 US dollars, you know, to run a campaign. And it and it goes on from there to be a senator you need $320. So you can imagine to be a governor it's probably half a million dollars. So our elections are very expensive. And it's largely because of the big money and the big money you think you will make once you become a politician, but also because the electorate has not yet quite understood this idea of a liberal democracy that you elect people to represent you to do mainly elections oversight legislation. It's oversight legislation and what's the other one I can't remember but it's really oversight and legislation and representation. So, most of our electorate still believes politics is, you elect somebody to go and bring you government money back, you know, back to the constituency. And if they're going to be any $10,000, then they need to be also paying for, for instance, if your child is sick, or you have a funeral, or you have, you know, so personal kind of needs, which I really think the state also should be helping to take care of these welfare needs. So politicians have to use most of their money in addressing these very personal and welfare needs of their constituents, otherwise they're not voted in again. So even if you go to parliament you make the best laws for your people who have the time they don't care. They'll say, you never sent me money for funeral x or, you know, my child school fees or something. So there are all these challenges also with our kind of politics. And also borrowing the Westminster kind of politics, I think, without thinking contextually, what that politics for us or representation means also taking care of people's needs. That's a bit complicated. Also, that that election, the context was also high inflation, high inequality, largely the cost of living inflation increasing everywhere in the world after the war in Ukraine, and widening in a quality gap especially in Kenya as there's, you know, big money. Africa has attracted all these global companies in Nairobi, Google. I mean, think of any big company they all come into setup shop in Nairobi, Nairobi seen as the Silicon Savannah of Africa so high tech industry. So there's also a very widening gap of inequality the UN, UN one of the UN headquarters UNEP is in Nairobi so there's, of course, all this global capital and the economy is connected to global capital of course not as largely as other say South Africa or others but it's, it's quite huge and so there's a widening in a quality gap with this kind of people whether it's in the corporate sector or whatever and in so much money. And as I said that 6% of the population and in only $57 a month. So also there's, but with despite all these challenges, there's of increasing improvement of institutions separation of power. There's a strong judiciary there was a strong judiciary. That's why even despite the elections and the contestation that exists that came up after the last year's election. There was a lot of belief in the judiciary. And even after what the judiciary decided that true to has won. Nobody went to the streets, you know, if they say it's okay we have accepted so that's progress I think that is just growing democracy. In this 2002 election we saw the winning allure of ethnic politics this ethnic nations and like 2007 2013 and 2017 ethnic, these people young people I think there's a huge also there's a huge what you call youth bulge increasing population of young people. And so there's a there was a huge division of young people for instance who did not vote water apathy. So 8 million people did not vote in Kenya yet they were registered so that tells you a lot. There's a group of many people who are highly, highly disenfranchised with elections, voting politics, and they just don't care anymore, because they feel we vote these guys they go and and $10,000 US dollars while we're still here dying of, you know, preventable diseases and very, and even even hunger but so there's that apathy among voters not just not just youth voters of course youth largely, because there's also a growing population of young people with no jobs, but who are who are also made a case and I think that's a lot of agency. And it's important because then it shows their delegitimizing even the leadership that exists. So youth and class in this election last year became also aware of a different way of organizing economic inequality became a new dimension with increasing unemployment among the youth so many young people would say I'm voting for for instance this hustler, the person who was picking to their needs. And so class is is is increasingly becoming a space for organizing, unlike previously we have voted largely along the ethnic nations. So women's representation is still low but it's also within 2022 we saw election women increase. We had three deputy presidents women. And there's a slide there for the women for the depth for the running mates increased women in politics. So this, the main parties that were running we had three women, mainly two, one very powerful woman the one on the left side, mother Karua, she's been in politics maybe since 1992. Since I can remember so she's considered the iron lady of Kenyan politics, and but her coalition with Odinga, they did not win the or rather they did not win the election so there's increased women representation we have seven governors who won the election, 29 members of parliament, another 47 members from the, from the, what they call the quarter. So if we go to the results, the hustlers had it. So we had two groups of people. Maybe you can put the slide with the hustlers versus dynasties newspaper, two groups of people that became very. The campaign was around this to the hustler versus the dynasty so William Ruto created created this. William Ruto, but these people who are, those who are especially campaigning for the two main groups, so it was William Ruto versus Raela Odinga, and William Ruto claimed to be the self mid hustler, who was better placed to understand the grievances of the poor despite being one of these politicians and he's it's alleged that most of his wealth is through corruption, and he drew a contrast between himself and his poor upbringing because he's always like I was born poor I used to sell chicken. When I went to university I couldn't raise my fees so I was a chicken seller. So he created this contrast between himself and the privileged Odinga, Odinga and Kenyatta because now the previous president was supporting his four Tandale Kenyatta, and he called these groups political dynasties or this group of these two, and aristocrats, given how their political careers have benefited from their fathers, both their fathers were the liberation heroes, or the liberation fathers from the British so Joe Mokinata and his deputy Jeremiah Odinga. So the two, the dynasty side of course dismissed Ruto as a thief, as I alleged alleging that he's a thief, but anyway, he still went ahead that the so called diner, what do you call it the hustler went ahead and won the election. And he was declared the winner of the election was contested by the dynasties political dynasties in court, and in court of course the election results were upheld largely because also this election used a lot of technology. And so our elections also again, even at the level of technical, it's they're the most expensive I think in the previous election 2017. I read somewhere that per capita per person the election cost us $25 compared to like the United Kingdom where the election cost less than $5 per person. So in this other new election, I mean 2020 probably even went to $35. So they were using a lot of digital devices. And also they had of course very high tech servers so one of the good things about this election, everybody could tell me the election votes because it was an open portal. So what are the implications of William Ruto's win on the economy of course there's, there's now it came in with a lot of promises to deal with inflation prices of the, the step point in Kenya is called Oogali so it's a maize meal maize meal where you eat with meat or vegetables, what would be like Irish potatoes in Ireland, but so the inflation continues with the continuing war of course in Ukraine and reduced funding to African countries from the EU and an investment. And so Ruto in his wisdom or luck I don't know has introduced what he has called the Hassler Fund. So remember he's the Hassler so he has all these Hassler things. So the Hassler funds which are to provide soft loans for micro entrepreneurs, very cheap probably up to even $5 you can borrow $10 a day, and it's through Kenyans are very digital service so it's through the phone. And for critics have of course questioned this and they're questioning should the state be involved in dishing loans to people they should give that to the private sector. And I think for him is trying to champion more economic nationalism and moral of the state involvement in provide provision of, of, of goods and services so he has also promised to end human rights violations. Because he, the Ruto regime claims that the past regime, of course jailed or tried to, to arrest a bunch of his supporters for corruption allegations. Most of those corruption cases unfortunately have been dropped in this new in this new regime. And he has appointed some of those people who are who are charged for corruption back as ministers and public officers, and some of those cases have been withdrawn so that is very scary. And, and so that lots of civil society groups and lots of critics are challenging that, but they keep saying they were, they were arrested wrongfully by the previous regime but we don't know so and also in terms of foreign policy Kenya continues to be an important partner, not just in the UN Security Council which it's a member, but also in the African Union, working also with the African East African community and Western states, largely especially in the fight against counter environment extremism, and also because of its role as a business hub with the technology, especially big tech companies, and increasingly now even with these issues on climate change, which have gotten a lot of support from the European Union. So his foreign policy seems to follow his predecessors, he doesn't seem to have shifted dramatically from his past. And so on, on, even on the, so on the fight against dealing with violent extremism, he's still working with the US and European Union countries. And he's been attending of course all important meetings to do with foreign policymaking. So it seems nothing much is changing in terms of that China of course continues to be a huge investor, not just in Kenya but also in other African countries. And he doesn't also seem to be changing any of that. So that remains. I think I will end at that because I can see my time is over, and I will hear your questions.