Samuel Kivuitu, chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), occupied a pivotal and tragic position in the 2007-08 Post-Election Violence. On December 30, 2007, at approximately 5:00 PM, Kivuitu announced that Mwai Kibaki had won the disputed presidential election. However, within hours, Kivuitu issued a follow-up statement that would haunt him: "I do not know who won." The admission exposed the chaos, pressure, and uncertainty that had characterized the ECK's tallying process. The contradiction between his initial announcement and his subsequent confession suggested that Kivuitu had been pressured into announcing a result he could not independently verify. Whether he announced Kibaki out of genuine belief, political pressure from Kibaki's camp, or ECK procedural failure remains contested, but the ambiguity shattered public confidence in the ECK and fueled the electoral dispute that triggered the violence.
Kivuitu had been ECK chairman since 1998, presiding over the 1997 and 2002 elections. By 2007, the ECK's reputation was already tarnished; observers noted irregularities and bias in previous elections, though electoral integrity had improved somewhat by 2007 standards. Kivuitu himself was regarded as more competent than his predecessor, Samuel Mohochi, but still subject to political pressure. In the weeks before the December 27, 2007 election, Kibaki's camp had signaled expectations of victory, and the ECK's structures (staffing, polling place assignments, tallying procedures) showed patterns some observers believed favored Kibaki's party. However, exit polls and observer reports suggested Odinga's National Democratic Alliance was winning, creating a sharp discrepancy between Kibaki's expected performance and actual results.
The tallying period (December 27-30) was chaotic. The ECK's use of manual tallying (not computerized) meant results depended on written forms transmitted from polling stations to district centers to the ECK headquarters in Nairobi. Forms went missing, were disputed, or arrived with inconsistencies. District officers reported results on television before official verification, creating confusion. By December 29, the ECK had received results from most constituencies, but discrepancies meant final tallies could not be verified. As Kibaki's campaign pressure mounted and security concerns (the violence was already beginning) intensified, Kivuitu apparently made the decision to announce a winner despite incomplete verification. The announcement of Kibaki's victory came within hours of the last few disputed constituency results.
Kivuitu's confession of uncertainty ("I do not know who won") suggested he had not personally verified the mathematics of the tally before announcing. Investigation later revealed that some results appeared to have been altered (votes adjusted upward for Kibaki in some constituencies); whether this occurred with ECK knowledge or through manipulation by officials is disputed. The KNCHR investigation noted irregularities but did not conclusively prove deliberate fraud at the ECK level. However, the impression of irregularity persisted; Raila Odinga and his supporters maintained that Kibaki's victory was artificially created. Kivuitu's ambiguous position (announcing a result he apparently could not verify) fed the narrative of electoral theft, regardless of whether theft had actually occurred.
Kivuitu's health declined in the years following the election. He suffered a stroke in 2008 or 2009 (accounts vary) and withdrew from public life. He died on January 15, 2009, less than 15 months after the disputed announcement. He never gave a comprehensive statement explaining the December 30 announcement or clarifying what happened in the tallying room. The absence of his testimony meant that the full story of the ECK's role in the electoral dispute was never fully established. Rumors and speculation persisted: that Kibaki or his handlers had pressured the ECK directly, that security forces had intimidated officials, that procedural failures had made verification impossible. Kivuitu's death left these questions unanswered.
The ECK was dissolved in 2009 as part of constitutional reform. Its successor, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), was designed with greater independence, transparency, and computerized systems. The reforms were explicitly responses to the 2007 electoral failures and the violence they triggered. However, the IEBC itself faced challenges in subsequent elections (2013, 2017), suggesting that institutional design alone cannot guarantee electoral integrity without political will and respect for results. Kivuitu's role remained contested: some viewed him as a victim of political pressure, others as complicit in fraud. The truth likely involved elements of both: procedural weakness made verification difficult, political pressure from Kibaki's camp was intense, and Kivuitu apparently lacked either the independence or the technical confidence to resist that pressure.
See Also
2007 Election Kibaki Swearing-In Raila Odinga Response New IEBC 41 Days Timeline
Sources
- Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. "Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence in Kenya." Nairobi, 2008. Pages 20-40 detail the tallying process and ECK role.
- Mould, David, and Rajagopal, R. "The 2007 Kenya Election Dispute: Election Observer Perspectives." Journal of Eastern African Studies, Volume 3, Issue 2, 2009. Available at https://www.tandfonline.com/
- European Union Election Observation Mission. "Kenya General Elections 2007: Final Report." Brussels, 2008. Available at https://www.eeas.europa.eu/