Mwai Kibaki – Samuel Kivuitu : The 2007 Kenyan Elections
In 2007, then-President Mwai Kibaki sparked widespread political controversy in Kenya by violating a decade-old informal agreement that required political parties to be consulted on the appointment of electoral commissioners. Without engaging the opposition or other stakeholders, Kibaki unilaterally announced the appointment of nine new members to the 22-member Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK). Soon afterward, he added five more individuals, further cementing his influence over the commission.
These new appointees not only raised eyebrows due to the lack of consultation but also because they broke with long-standing tradition. In a highly unusual and troubling move, many of the newly appointed commissioners chose to oversee elections in their own home provinces. There, they handpicked returning officers—officials responsible for overseeing voting and counting at constituency level—effectively centralizing control and raising fears about impartiality and fairness in the upcoming general elections.
As the country approached the 2007 general elections, signs of tension and foreboding began to appear across the nation. Nakumatt, a major supermarket chain in Kenya, made headlines when it announced restrictions on the purchase of gardening tools and kitchen utensils such as machetes and knives. This decision followed a mysterious and alarming surge in sales of such items, which many interpreted as evidence that some communities were preparing for violent conflict. The growing mistrust in electoral processes and the simmering ethnic and political tensions contributed to an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.
Samuel Kivuitu, may he rest in peace, was at the center of the storm. As the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, Kivuitu had previously overseen multiple high-stakes national votes, including the 1997 and 2002 general elections and the 2005 constitutional referendum. However, it was his reappointment by President Kibaki in the run-up to the 2007 elections that proved most contentious.On election day and in the days that followed, reports of irregularities, delays, and alleged manipulation of vote tallies began to surface. Tension reached a boiling point when Kivuitu took the podium to announce the official presidential results.
As he prepared to declare the winner, opposition leaders—infuriated by widespread reports of vote rigging and irregularities—stormed the stage in protest. The scene quickly descended into chaos.In response, the General Service Unit (GSU), a paramilitary police force, intervened by cutting off electricity and deploying tear gas inside the venue. Kivuitu, under heavy security, was taken to a secure room, where he finally announced the results via a televised broadcast. In a nation hanging on edge, he declared President Kibaki the winner by a margin of just 231,728 votes—one of the narrowest presidential victories in Kenyan history.
The results triggered widespread outrage, especially among supporters of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), which had secured 94 seats in Parliament compared to Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU), which only managed 43. Many Kenyans felt that the results did not reflect the true will of the people.Kivuitu disappeared from public view immediately after the announcement. The next time he appeared on Kenyan television was during Kibaki’s inauguration at State House Lawn, a moment that many viewed as a symbol of the institutional capture of the electoral process and the failure of democratic safeguards.
The 2007 general elections would go down as one of the darkest chapters in Kenya’s political history, sparking post-election violence that claimed over 1,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands. It served as a painful reminder of the cost of electoral manipulation, lack of transparency, and the deep ethnic and political divisions that continue to challenge the nation’s democratic progress.
