One of Kenya’s leading economists has said he is “sick” of being asked whether the country’s general elections next month will trigger violence. He added that people whose sole interest in the polls on 8 August was whether or not there would be clashes were setting a “very low bar” for the country.

Kwame Owino, chief executive of Kenya’s Institute of Economic Affairs, told the Guardian he was fed up with people only asking him for a prediction as to whether there would be unrest after the country goes to the polls, as there was after the 2007 elections, which resulted in more than 1,000 people being killed and 600,000 displaced from their homes.

Kwame Owino: ‘I think we should be more ambitious.’

“We are hung up with 2007 and 2008, which were very specific circumstances,” he said. “We have the view that anything that doesn’t lead to violence is acceptable. It’s not.

“I’m tired of this idea, will the elections be peaceful or not? That’s not the only result that we expect. We have a very ambitious constitution, so to simply say that we have a result and we have no violence, that’s setting a very low bar for ourselves. I think we should be more ambitious and say we’ll have a peaceful election, we’ll have a legitimate presidency, we’ll have a successful transition, because there’s also the parliamentary elections. We expect to reach the two-thirds gender goals that the constitution has set for us [which demands one-third of positions in parliament are filled by women], all that.”

Next month, Kenyans will be electing a president, a parliament and local politicians, including county governors. The two main rivals for the presidency are the incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, the country’s former prime minister, who also ran in 2013 against Kenyatta, and in 2007 against Mwai Kibaki. Odinga alleges both elections were rigged.

Fears about violence mean that in every election year the economy suffers a drop in growth of about one percentage point, as foreign and Kenyan investors wait to see what the result will be and how it will be received.

The 2013 elections earned international praise for their peaceful nature, despite the fact the result was very close – a candidate is required to get 50% for victory, and Kenyatta received 50.07% of the vote – and was contested by Odinga.

There are still concerns in Kenya about tensions in some regions, the credibility of the electoral commission and corruption in the country – it was ranked 145th out of 176 countries by Transparency International in its 2016 report into perceptions of corruption.

But Owino said much work has been done over the past decade to improve the credibility of public bodies and institutions, most significantly the introduction of a constitution in 2010. He said the elections will be “the culmination of several years work in one day”.

Owino said that while the caution of investors might be “sensible”, it hurts the country, affecting jobs and slowing growth, taking about a year from the election to recover.



This slowing of growth is particularly unfortunate given recent economic difficulties. The Kenyan economy is growing at a rate of about 5% every year – more than double the global average, and at a significantly faster rate than the average for sub-Saharan Africa. But a decline in real wages, as well as inflation, now at roughly 12%, have made life difficult for many Kenyans, which has affected the election campaign, with the two major rivals both campaigning on strong economic platforms, promising jobs and infrastructure.

The country’s severe drought has exacerbated the problem, pushing up food prices.

“We have two main coalitions and a few other political parties, each of them is emphasising a very strong economic platform ... and it’s not by chance, it’s because Kenyans are showing, through some agitation as well about the prices of food, that we are feeling the economic pinch,” said Owino.