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UN role mulled after Kenya election
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 49 minutes ago
UNITED NATIONS - Kofi Annan used all his negotiating skills to work
out a power-sharing deal over Kenya's contested presidential election.
If the former U.N. secretary-general hadn't stepped in, African Union
and U.N. officials acknowledge, they wouldn't have known what to do
next.
A spokesman for the top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, told The
Associated Press the lack of a U.N. backup plan highlights a need to
give nations more and earlier election assistance.
"The United Nations should recognize that elections in countries such
as ours are always flash points of potential violence," said
opposition spokesman Salim Lone, a former U.N. official. "Often the
rigging begins well before election day, and to show up just before
polling starts is quite inadequate."
Three of the biggest and most difficult elections of the past decade
in developing nations -- in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Congo -- came off
successfully with extensive U.N. sup****t and hundreds of millions of
dollars in international aid.
Since the 1990s and the elections that helped to decolonize places
like South Africa, Mozambique and Cambodia, the U.N. largely got out
of the election-observing business and focused instead on giving
technical assistance to the many nations that request it.
"It's partly because of the size and the cost," said Craig Jenness,
director of the U.N.'s Electoral Assistance Division, who was among a
half-dozen U.N. staff who were on hand to help Annan for several weeks
in Nairobi.
Annan met for the past month almost every day with negotiators for
Mwai Kibaki, the president, and Odinga.
On Thursday, Annan's efforts paid off with the announcement that
Kibaki and Odinga agreed to share power and try to end the violence
that has killed more than 1,000 Kenyans and driven hundreds of
thousands from their homes since the Dec. 27 election. With the
election close, charges of election-rigging were swapped on both
sides.
U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban had no other options ready to
turn to in case Annan's efforts had failed. The African Union
similarly put its full confidence in Annan to reach an agreement, AU
officials said.
Most of the election problems, Jenness said, occurred during the
election "re-tally" when polling stations filled in forms summarizing
the election results. Those forms were forwarded to central stations,
which added up the votes and filled out new forms to send to Nairobi.
Both sides agreed it would be too risky and take too long to hold
another election or to open all the ballot boxes and do a complete
recount of each ballot -- a process that would have taken two or three
months, according to Jenness.
"The question was, can Kenya really wait for that?" he said.
While some in Odinga's camp wonder if the election crisis might have
been averted with more international election help, they also see a
bright side to what Annan and others pulled off.
"This outcome has sent a wonderful message across Africa which is that
election-rigging will not be able to stand," Lone said. "Prevention is
infinitely preferable to trying to fix a damaged ****p, and the means
must be found where the international community becomes engaged a year
before elections in countries where some problems are expected."
Jenness disagreed, saying no amount of election assistance for Kenya
could have addressed its underlying problems, which occurred during
the tally process. It's unclear if those would have been prevented by
having more longtime observers, he added.
"To me, the question is could the international community have
anticipated that at least one side would try to cheat in a close
election?" Jenness said.
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