Effectiveness of Multitrack Diplomacy Actors in Critical Assessment of Kenya’s Presidential Election Outcomes, 2007-2017
Loading...
Date
2021-08-23
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Political Science and International Relations
Abstract
In Kenya’s last four presidential elections, election observers had been seriously looked upon by both the Kenyan
voters and the international community to provide alternative but credible information on the process and outcomes of
presidential elections in Kenya. This was expected to promote legitimacy of the outcomes. Given that there was a dearth of
specific scholarship to address the question, this study was conducted. This paper therefore examines the effectiveness of
multitrack diplomacy in monitoring Kenya’s presidential election outcomes. The study was epistemological. It was conducted
in 8 of the 17 constituencies of Nairobi City County which hosts the Kenya’s largest city and its capital with a natural
representation of the population of the entire country. Out of the over 4 million residents of Nairobi City County, total sample
size was 441 (384 questionnaire respondents, 32 focus group discussion participants and 25 key informant interview
respondents). The study reached 436 (384 questionnaire respondents, 32 focus group discussion participants and 20 key
informant interview respondents) out of 4 million people. Targeted were Kenya citizens who had voted at least once for a
presidential candidate in any of the presidential elections held between 2007 and 2017 for the survey; individuals working with
and for government institutions in Kenya’s electoral systems especially the election management body, ministry of foreign
affairs, members of parliament, the Chief Justice, pollsters, the media, non-governmental organizations, religious institutions
across all faiths as to Muslims, Christians and Hindu, major political parties, former election observers and diplomatic
missions. The study found that multitrack diplomacy (MTD) actors or election observer missions (EOMs) observed election
irregularities to above 50%. They detected electoral fraud in the 2007 presidential elections, identified election irregularities in
the 2013 and the 2017 presidential elections but could not deter nor prevent outcome fraud. The paper, based on the study,
concluded that multitrack diplomacy actors that monitored the presidential elections were fairly effective, they had reasonable
capacity, fairly above 50%. Overall, multitrack diplomacy is effective in monitoring of Kenya’s presidential election but
inefficacious in preventing and deterring election outcome fraud. Multitrack diplomacy actors-the election observation
missions (EOMs) to use enhanced technology to match the electoral systems technology, improve on their objectivity during
monitoring and be granted full accesses by governments and election management bodies (EMBs) for systematic,
comprehensive and accurate monitoring.