Transcripts For CSPAN2 Kenya Elections 20170816

Panel this morning consisting of two distinguished journalists who have been in kenya following the campaign and the election in kenya. I will introduce them in just a minute. My name is mark, i am a Senior Advisor for africa here at csis. Some years ago i was ambassador in my nairobi and i had the opportunity to spend several years there prior to this years election. I want to start off with a few remarks and then turn to our gas. As all of you know, this week, some 1 15 million kenyans went to the polls to elect members of parliament, to elect 49 counties in this was a remarkable event, if only because of the thousands of Campaign Appearances by different candidates because of the passionate participation being such a large part of the electorate and also because of the technological sophistication of this process including the speedy electronic tallying of votes on election day. As you all know, incumbent president one the presidency by a margin of victory that was larger than predicted in any poll, but not outside the realm of probability. As expected, Opposition Leader has rejected the results, claiming that these elections were rigged. I think they genuinely believed he had the numbers this time to win and many kenyans and International Observers believed that as well. They warned that he was certain that the incumbents would stop at nothing to rob him yet again of an electoral victory. Yet unlike, and 2007 and 2013, he is struggling to convince observers that these elections were in fact seriously flawed. Angry protests have erupted in some nairobi slums and in parts of western kenya that are strongholds, but so far there is little to suggest a repeat of the ethnic based violence that followed the 2007 elections. Most of the deaths in this unrest can be attributed to quick triggered Kenyan Security forces. I think at this point its probably a good idea for all of us to urge restraint on all sides, restraint in terms of putting supporters in the street and to the kenyan government, keeping its Security Forces on a short lease. Most International Observers quickly gave the thumbsup to these elections, the white house has issued a statement congratulating the president on his victory. In kenya, apart from the opposition rejection of the results, some legitimate remains. Forms signed by Election Officials and party agents at each polling station and in each constituency center that are meant to confirm electronic results of these elections have not yet been completely and publicly released. For the Election Commission to say dont worry, we have these forms in hand isnt good enough. To put the final seal of approval on this election, these forms need to be posted by the Electoral Commission on its website or otherwise made available for public scrutiny. Without that final step, Public Confidence in the Electoral Commission, which was a problem throughout the campaign, this lack of confidence will endure, and suspicions about hacking and rigging that have been raised will likely also endure. I must confess that some of my predictions about this election did not come to pass and in many ways, i am relieved they didnt. It was very easy to imagine scenarios whereby this election, which was acrimonious throughout and thought to be exceptionally close would end in disorder and possibly large spread violence. That would have been severe setback for kenyans young democracy and for kenyans eager to exercise and test their rights under kenyas new constitution. Happily, those worstcase scenarios did not materialize. I may also have been wrong in predicting that a clean, fair, credible electoral process regardless of who one would be a big boost psychologically for all of kenya, and overtime would have the effect of bringing communities closer together. I was probably a little too idealistic in making that assumption. The aftermath of this election, clean and fair and credible though it may prove to be seems to be trending in a different direction, and not necessarily one leading to greater inclusiveness or social cohesion. It may be too early to draw that conclusion, but its not too early to be concerned about the victors to crack down on civil society, a move that recall some of the low points that followed the 2013 election. I would now like to turn to our two guests. Im delighted we have two distinguished journalists from voice of america, both of whom have covered different aspects of the Kenyan Campaign and the electoral process. Directly to my right, victor mccoury is managing editor of voas english to Africa Service and he is tv host of the africa 54 program. A native of kenya, he is a personal journalist with more than 20 Years Experience working in africa, europe and the u. S. He has covered Many International stories, Many International conferences and he covered this election on the ground, arriving some weeks or days before the election and staying through the electoral process. It is great to have you with us today. To his right, a native tanzanian chief of voa swahili service. He started his career as a journalist in tanzania, he joined voa in 1994 and has traveled widely through africa and reported from many corners of africa. He was one of the first journalists to visit darr for and report on the darr fourstory back in 2004. He holds bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees from howard university. He set up and organized and iran the network of voa correspondence in place in kenya to cover this election. Again, thank you both for agreeing to join us here at csi s this afternoon and if i can, i would like to turn to you victor for your comments on this election. Each of our guests will speak for a while, and then we will open this up to your comments and questions. Good afternoon. It certainly up pleasure to be invited here to talk about this election in kenya. It was such an event and it was great to be on the ground. As the ambassador just mentione mentioned, also the predictions, so many things that happened right before, but i can say that having been monitoring the development up to the election, it was an exciting time for everyone. This is because the stakes were so high. The incumbent was running to make sure he could secure a second term because it does mean a lot for him and his supporter supporters. He did a good job for the past five years for the opposition. Its been concluded this is it. This was his only chance now to make it, and if he doesnt i predict he will be taking his retirement from politics is what people think. Now we dont know if he will confirm that so is interesting to be on the ground and try to listen to what they are saying out there, why they wanted to be elected and i write about ten days before the actual closing day, and at that time there was so much frenzy of activity, campaigns were all over the country. Sometimes crisscrossing each other, trying to really get the very last vote from the areas where they believe many undecided voters or they didnt do so well last time. It was almost impossible to catch up with him because we were here the next morning. There was interesting that the night that i was traveling ther there, i did not realize that a very important key person had just disappeared and i woke after that news as i was just kind of settling in and fighting my jet leg to learn that the ict manager had just gone missing and then discovered murdered. The timing couldnt have been worse. There was just a few days until the election and there had been all the speculation, especially about the confidence that one could have. Their accusations by the opposition that there were schemes to infiltrate the Electoral Commission and manipulate the process and so we woke up to that. First the shock of the death of that man and then of course everybody now was wondering if this was directly linked to the election that were just a few days away. That kind of changed the narrative in the conversation regarding security of the electronic system. As we continue trying to understand what was happening and the authorities are investigating, we continued to observe the campaign and there was a frenzy of activity. We tried to listen a little closely to work out what were the major platforms for these different campaigns. Especially the big candidate that was commissioned. One of them told me the day after the election expected to be at the statehouse although he spent most of his time in nairobi. Listening to the two campaigns, you didnt really get a lot in terms of the platform like what did they really strongly stand for. Other than attacking each other. They were on the campaign trail, especially what had been done for Infrastructure Development and said that underweight even before in the Current Administration and they took credit for the implementation of those projects. Later on all these networks of highways which some of them were completed and some of them were still under construction. They said if you elect us, we will definitely complete the job. Therefore, they took care of what they had done but also what they havent done by using that as a call to allow them to complete the job. The opposition had to have time to convince the voters that they can do something because they didnt have anything to show fo for. What they would do, you could see the challenge of trying to convince the voters that they have a better plan. As a journalist, i was trying to look for real concrete plans, a strategy on Iconic Development or otherwise but you really didnt see much. There was a lot of drama, they traded insults, there was dancing on the campaign trail and then of course it was very well organized and nicely orchestrated election day. They went to polling stations and did a fantastic job in the election. There were a few problems here and there and a few missing things, but overall i think election day was a success. There were few complaints about irregularities, but because the Election Commissioner promised that everyone would be allowed to vote until 8 00 p. M. Instead of closing at 5 00 p. M. Eventually [inaudible] being streamed live in it didnt take long before we saw this gap between the incumbent and the Opposition Leader. After that the Opposition Leader said those numbers are fake and it set off all this drama and the debate started around the issue of whether these were credible numbers on screen. The conversation almost threatened to stall the whole process. Well talk a little bit more about that but i think that is generally what i share with you of what the process was before, during and after the election. Thank you. I want to show how we prepared , we felt this was a credible election does rethink a lot of people were interested in. We decided we are going to go to nairobi. [inaudible] we trained them. Not all of them were from kenya. They were from south sudan and other areas, uganda and canyons. We wanted to do some training on election coverage and really dig into the issue of activity. This was surely going to come in the elections. There was a lot of discussion of violence in the media was caught in the middle not to hide this but also you had to say this as an elephant in the room. It was a delicate balance so we wanted to deal with the. We did this training will with all platform radio, tv and Digital Content for five days and later we did more social media training. Social media was very important in the selection. We wanted to address that before the elections. During the elections [inaudible] and we had people from here. [inaudible] we had very good coverage across the country. Talking about the election itself, the way we covered it, we just made sure that we captured the mood and what was going on. One thing that comes out is the confidence that the people of kenya had. People came out in big numbers and you could see people shivering in the cold at midnight. That was a memorable moment when they stood in line for four hours to vote. She came and got in line and didnt vote until 10 00 a. M. People wanted to do this right. They were going home and waiting for the. When the results came, i would say personally they were observing the results before the elections. Almost all the polls, two days before the election they were not connect. When the results started coming out, you were surprised that just a few hours after the morning that he was way out there. And he never relinquished until the end. How he jumped so far ahead . Today, actually will i dont know people in the crowd know, we had promises big announcement and they were on pins and needles waiting for this announcement and how the figures were cooked. I think the nation breathed a sigh of relief when the announcement was made. Now its upon the judiciary to get resolution. Let me share, one of our journalists, she wrote a story that shows they voted along ethnic lines. They warned all 12 countries with dominant as a group and in the main group he received 97 of the vote. Ethnic feelings are very strong. [inaudible] he won five of the six countries and not the problem. Only on the eastern province, he won five counties. These numbers, there will be no more numbers coming out and will give us a window into how we analyze the selection, but they are giving us this summary of how this election went. They campaign on the record and they took credit of some achievement which some of them started in previous administrations. The other Campaign Mostly on promises. They were put together just a few months earlier. We were in nairobi. The opposition was traveling and wanting to know who to put as the candidate and thats when they formed their coalition. They may progress to really get their platform together and their message out there. I think that was a tough job but they did all they could. They traveled across the nation. I remember a time when he was traveling by road in his truck got stuck in mud. He got a feeling of what other regular kenyans feel when they tried to travel across the country. I will stop there and we will get to some of the issues of interest to you. Maybe, i dont want to get into your program, but i think i would like you to hear from him who was there during the election to maybe say a Little Something on the outside thank you. Good afternoon. Talk to me, come on yes so i was in nairobi and we were right there from day one until a few days actually we got there week before the election and we were able to see what was going on in terms of preparation will. in jubilees time. And i was here. But i have seen it all. And what i would say from a general perspective point of view my assessment of how the election went especially the process of preparing and voting and also having gone to where the current president on the eighth of this month this was probably the best in terms and up to that point. What happened after the voting happened is kind of for another day. I cannot claim to know because again as youve heard they are saying that somethings happened according to the opposition things happened that they are not happy with. We are getting now speaking to them i think what he has done is really a bright thing because even for us who are not privy to the exact walking what had happening. Hell be it would be an opportunity for us to see through the judicial system and whether they did not happened and they are just crying for no good reasons. I think the initial issue that we may need to talk about i would be more than happy to share. That is actually a good point. I just want to underline i think most observers certainly most observers that i talk about would agree that this is an exceptionally wellrun election particularly when contrasted with previous attempts we have some pretty severe technical breakdowns which have led to an absence of Public Confidence in the process that was not an issue at this time. In the technical breakdowns were not an issue. And that said im not sure the technology is also the answer. It doesnt guarantee a free and fair election. But this was a big improvement. Before we go to the questions and the larger audience i would like to ask vincent a question or two about the media. And the coverage of the election in kenya. You have teams all over the country and can you share with us a little bit. The reporters that you have out in the field did they had free access. Were they able to get to the polling stations. Were they able to talk to officials and to talk to voters. Were they willing to talk to journalists and willing to share their experiences and secondly you guys were working alongside the kenya media. For them to come in for this event. And maybe you can share with us some of your impressions about how did the media cover this. Do they do the right job. If i may ask a simple thing. You can able to go on to any of the important areas. When the results that they have. There was no restriction. I dont think there was any problem speaking with that participant in the campaign as a politician. They were moving around too much. Especially pinning them down for a sitdown interview was a big challenge. Their priorities were elsewhere. They wanted to appeal to the voters. And not to the interests in talking some of us so that was a big challenge there. But seeing how the other media houses covered it. I look closely at the local media. They try their best to do a good job. They enjoy free space in terms of media after many years of fighting. In a way i feel like looking at how the elections were covered there are not many strong things. The media in a way to get with an easier route. What is reported is what one side said. The Serious Investigation into how truthful are the statements. With certain development towards it. You want it to go out and find out if really that is true when certain claims are made against the other side how fair and truthful are some of the claims by the government. Maybe they did not have the resources but do you feel like there was something missing and helping to inform the citizens tree. And really making a Fair Assessment of where the country is five years after the last election. In terms of whether it is the current development. The countryside development. With the local counties. How they had been utilized. Personally i felt like there were opportunities lost during that time. I totally agree. In terms of that performance of the media. We didnt really get any. We prepared to get that. We have it. Maybe you want to talk about that. That is after the election. And one of those days coming out of that. The idaho headquarters and are being interviewed. We have to go i think that is born of the over sensitivity of any appearance with the postelection violence. And it has been a very very sensitive about that. You could see the censorship of the local media its almost across the board up every coverage. It comes from the event. I think it was traumatized. And almost created this monster where everybody is so terrified. We also had the limitations. We have limitations in terms of time ive been on air. You have to agree that the local media was under heavy pressure in terms of not to be seen to incite any kind of violence. And that led to them checking themselves into it. How do they cover it. As they would say. There wasnt a lot of Fact Checking for instance. Whatever the candidate said thats what would be reported without any kind of Fact Checking. There are some restrictions during our training we brought in a gentleman from an Organization Called africa check. They have those in nigeria. When they are doing a good job in terms of teaching journalists how to fact checked within short time that was missing. The local media work with this delicate balance of being socially responsible and also calling as it is. And i think if i was to do that. They were working on being socially responsible. And incline the story as it is. Socially responsible. Lets open us up to questions or comments. This is all on the record. We are completely transparent today. And this is an on the record discussion. Yes sir. He will go second. Thank you. Thank you very much. This is a very stimulating panel. I had been going in and out of kenya since 1980 when i was a fulbright scholar. One of the things that that is always troubling about kenya is their there their extrajudicials killings i think back to some other charismatic politicians they alluded to the murder of this a gentleman. Does it look like it wasnt extra judicial killing or what do you know about it today. Thank you. Hi matrilineal. I wanted to ask a question he started to talk about in regard to the counties certainly the big stories that weve heard about kind of more in academic form not very much in the news media is on still untold story about those counties. Its the first democratic transition of counties. And so, as more powers and taxes get pumped into counties what the untold story that certainly we can generalize about. The groups that are in these counties. Many counties are also different groups. The depth of that. As they would say the timing of his death his disappearance and then really. The fact that this gentleman was described in terms of how the Computer System when he disappeared and died at that time there was a lot of speculation that could be political and then around the time that there were some stories with that. He got killed with the young lady with him. His death wont affect the credibility of the Computer System. But so far it was a new news investigation so far. So we dont know. [inaudible] he died because of that. He have some information and therefore this is certainly something that were to get more of monica the court. Im sure according to that the name will come up in court. That is what we know for now at least from the official position from the government. Might take it from there. We know two of three things. Someone was murdered and tortured and the police launched an investigation. Up till now that investigation the investigation is ongoing. We dont know why he was killed. Now we nobody can say for sure why he was killed. As for the history of kenya and how the results and the issue of the high profile murders. Unless something changes in the future i dont think there has been a great one for it. It is really critical who did and why they did it. It is unfortunate really. We hope someone will come to the bottom of this. For many many years. They had been clamoring for system that can allow the developments to be there. The management of the counties of the local eras to be managed by their own people. In their own area and i think the county system is the best thing that ever happened to kenya. Now with the devolved system of government they are allocated to the different counties. Is a representative how they run the different projects within the county. Now they had contributed a great deal to the development of the different regions of the country. Some have done really well. There is a good spirit of Competition Among governors to do better than the other guys. There has also been accusations of massive corruption because everybody has now a little bit of control within the local area. Some of the local officials have pocketed some of the money that was meant for the counties. That was unfortunate and across the board. Some have accused governors and have officials and something when they have that among officials. In terms of holding their leaders accountable. It is localized. The president has to determine whats part of the country. Now the local leaders had that. I meet let me just at a couple of those points to those on the killing of the individual. We know who the authors of the particular crime work. We do know that kenya has something of a history of the disappearance and assassination of political figures of human rights activist. Witnesses that happens. But even by the standards it was particularly brazen and shocking. It was meant to have an effect of some kind. This is not some then hijacking. Is body is found in the forest the next morning. This is meant to have this and send a signal. We just dont know exactly what the signal was. I do think it is going to turn out to be historically free and fair election. It is going to be this unexplained murder. The one signal it does send the is indisputable is one of impunity im sure that authors of this crime were competent and the acted confidently with a sense of nearperfect unity. The counties are an exciting story in kenya a sense that was pointed out. These are some of the widely contested races. The county is not entirely a popular idea at least in nairobi after the new constitution was passed and there was a slowness in implementing that. I think there is a great deal of Popular Support in kenya for this revolution of power. This is a lot of money. And a lot of resources that are being pushed down to the county level. In fact there is a huge belt that goes along with that. The salaries that are being paid have led to a lot of complaints. Resources are there. I saw a pole. Which of the six ballots you are casting is a little bit more important to you. As you would expect most canyon said the president is the most important one. The second most important vote that the cast was for the member of their constituent assembly. It was a county legislator. That is an interesting sign that there is a certain degree of Popular Support. The big and mean advantage that you see on the ground. For those of us that come from the region. I just mentioned about that. I think theyve come out very clear to say that yes there was an attempt was unsuccessful. In any case thats how we been presiding until one or two days before the election. No one had those paths. Whatever they have given out. It was actually not very material. I would say that they were being connected by the police. They have some leads with the other time is accounted for. So i just head that. If you could talk more about that allegation because it doesnt go well with the fact that there on the ground and lastly i was there for the election. I can tell you that i think this is one of the most well organized elections. It took me less than 30 seconds to vote. Thank you. You did much letter dash mike much better than the first lady we were in line. Im willing to take on one of those questions. I dont think we as a generalist had that. All we do we reported on what the petition opposition has said. They made those claims. The responses were there. When dont have any evidence whatsoever that there was any rigging that we cannot take sides on that. Is 100 percent. Better than anything for same. What we observe is the system that has put in place. It is secure that they have a system that could not be in those attempts. They did it. Any evidence that they have the hacking of the system we never saw anything. We havent been shown any document or anything that can confirm any of those. We look forward to observing that in court. Hope we can get some revelation into what really happened. Generally we did not necessarily take sides in embrace any of those accusations we have just reported on what we heard and we waited to see if there was anybody that could produce evidence to prove any of those things. The decision to not go to court was the best decision for the nation. The president elect ask the opposition if you are not happy with this and the results go to court. The fact that they are going to Court Everything will come out in the open. Each side is steady in their claim the official result is that jubilee has won the election and the threat it stands at the moment. But is also there to make everything so transparent. Everything that has not been made transparent so far to be made transparent. They call on them to some 200,000 forms a or b which havent been made on the system. The eu is calling on that to do that. And the resolve this issue. Just one other point in terms of the entire process in the numbers in Parliament One of the things that we needed to recognize is the dynamics were really different. In in terms of how they performed it is true that the campaign was different. We mentored a little earlier that the coalition have a very will oiled machine on the ground because they had been around since the last election. They had been literally campaigning since last election. The Opposition Coalition is a very new outfit. Trying to move ahead. And they have some disadvantages. In all fairness the Jubilee Coalition did an amazing job on the ground focusing on areas where they did very poorly last time. You can see that they performed well. In terms of the local races. So there is no dispute over that. Not many people have disputed the victories of some of those officials from the correlation that dynamics were completely different from the same. I want to thank you investor for small for being here and for your comments this afternoon. I guess one prediction that we couldve all made before the selection was set was that its can end up in the courts. Regardless of which side appeared to win. When it was a vice president. And thats necessarily a bad thing. At the end of the day it seems to me what matters is how broadly our canyons reconciled to the electoral results whether they have that on the losing end of it. Anything that can be done to achieve that result. Its worth pursuing that. I was just wondering what you thought. Its because everybody had counted that. It was a reverse to the government request. To how to do that. Without permits. I personally am not privy to all those details whether they had issues with the taxes and employment of those. I dont know about that. Of course anything happening in a certain time can be seen as suspicious. They would probably go by proxy to some of those organizations and one of the two people they would have that. Of course the suspicion as to why you crackdown. At this time you dont know. I think there be no elections without the people of kenya. Do you think is there. The reason i say that is because i think in the past you could easily convince people to do Something Like that. But this time around it seems like things are different. Do you think we animated the wheel of kenya when it comes to the election. The whole world had that violence. We are wondering how much credit can we give them themselves. They tried but there was agreement that it wasnt combated as that. Thats what we have some spoiled ballots. And they said. They made a mistake. A person would put a line in one box. There are issues or so with that. They couldnt possibly identify who they were electing. Those education. There would it wouldnt be any widespread balance. To when you speak to people. They have no appetite for balance. I think as you mentioned earlier. The events of 2007. And nothing in our lifetime we seen anything close to that. After that time the majority of them would not allow the country to slide back. But also to maintain the peace. We do have a few here and there. That was expected. But its not about to burn up. I dont think it will happen. It doesnt matter who tries inside them into violence. Why you are waiting for that. Let me say that everything considered i completely agree with you. I think the first winners our kenyan people in the way they turned out for that. It was 78 or 79. A voter turnout. And you dont get that you get that in a country. So for the fact that people came and used the night to exercise their right. It was a display of knowledge and knowing that this is our right and we have to go out there and exercise it. Definitely they were the first winners. The kenyan people where the first winners in the selection. I think the fact that there was no widespread violence of time it is a tradition that we probably wont see anything like this. Even young musicians. They were reliving a lot of videos. Actually to the large extent. Towards the end of that. They came out the government itself. In sending and sending all of those messages of peace. They were almost pleading with the electorate to not get into the situations. The very last meeting. And all goes towards that same message of peace. I think it will walk to that point. Its unlikely that king is going to have that. Thats really what i think. They would think twice. Thats part of it. I think we had time for a couple more questions. We will come to you a second then. I like to think the painless. Associate with them that dont know the kenyan election. It has been dubbed the election. There had been an estimated 90 helicopters registered for politicians to campaign at different parts of the country. Which reflects a growing disparity and questions the feasibility of that. They recognize the irony in that statement. I as an american have an opinion. His enough you can comment on how election or Campaign Techniques in kenya if we could come up with any trends or predict any developing trends that you see in the future thank you. I work for the u. S. State contractor. Before the elections the terrorist group be for any possible means. I was wondering if it had been attempts for them to do so. And whether or not they were successful at a local level. Inky. The president ial campaign. For a lot of us being spent on the campaign. They go across the country. One of the things i think the media missed out on licking about how much money is being spent out there. And whether that was speaking to the disparities. I think they have a couple that was estimated at about 3,000 per hour. And for months and months we saw the helicopters landing and places. There was a big short of force with many out there in the campaign and the trail. And unfortunately there is no transparency as to how much money is being spent. And where its coming from in many cases people are using this as a way to kind of question the why we have such disparity between those who have much and and they land in these places that is just on the face poor people in their finding a way to get that. That has been used as a basis on the question of how will we are doing with those economic things. Some of it flies to the place because there are no good roads and accessibility is pulling from all those places. Ideally, it couldve been a basis to do stories on the level of Economic Development on the ground. And the politicians to combat this campaign. Some people of actually have actually said the reason might we have a lot of correction in the system is after spending so much money some head to try to recoup this i think it is a very legitimate question. I think another structural regulation that could be put in place in the coming elections. Financial disclosure. How much money is being spent. Getting it. There are no when it comes to how you collect your campaign money. They can spend as much as they want. Nobody knows where this is coming from. Maybe it would be another stage in kenya. In terms of streamlining the democratic institutions. As far as bob there were those threats but there were no during the election day as we say we have that streamlined. I think that was an incident today sometime this week they were not successful in terms of this. And actually sometime in the run up to the election there were claims that the government is training soldiers for special operations. In fact the government finds that we live in a time where we have threats and some of the training that was being offered was to make sure that the election will take place peacefully and there will be massive security. I think they can take credit for this. It was enough for the election to take place fairly peacefully and no one was intimidated no one failed to go to the police station. I think the government can take credit for that. In some ways there had been an uptick before the election. These were mostly obama attacks. Some felt like that might be a precursor to a bigger effort to disrupt the elections but as i said forever reason it did not occur. That actually would be an interesting subject of analysis. And they contained it. I dont know. Interesting story though. On the campaign i would just add a couple of things. It has always astonished me the extent to which the politics are so demonstrative and the candidates are traveling hundreds of thousands of kilometers from one big rally to the next in every corner of the country. There is a tremendous amount of showmanship even by american standards and naturally a lot of money changes hands. That something people need to get there transport and meals paid for. There is a lot of money being passed out. I was always struck by the giant lorries on the road with the young men. Jamming the highways. In support of their candidates. One thing i would say also is most important kenyan politicians and even down to the level of governor or member of the constituent assembly had signed sightly sizable security entourages. They are sometimes formal and with bodyguards. And sometimes they just assemble for one purpose and are not there the next day. I think before the election there was a worry that given the stakes in the selection and intent and see of this campaign that there was a real risk that some of us this would spill over to violent clashes between armed groups. Before the election and that did not happen. The campaign itself did not spill over into the kind of violence that you might have feared in a charged atmosphere like this one. Where 70 people were running around with guns. To have time maybe a couple more questions. I am a senior associate with csi as here. I was hoping that we could speak a little bit more about the recent Police Killing particularly at this looks like it was at all directed from the top or if they mentioned it was more with a happy policeman and whether or not the independent Police Oversight authority was lifted up about five years ago was investigated on that front. Im sorry if i can get to everybody. With the International Republic and institute. Thank you so much for your comments today. My question is regarding women in the selection. We saw that while there were some Success Stories first woman been one being elected to the governor see for example we still see fairly low percentage and representation of use and women who represent a large portion of the kenyan population. So much so that at the National Level at least the Parliament Still doesnt meet the constitutional requirements. Could you speak a little bit about the dynamics of william women and youth in the selection. To have about it representation going forward. Very quickly on the killings there is no evidence that there was an order from above to kill citizens. Of course as a master mentioned before might be triggerhappy. There is no evidence whatsoever that anybody came and killed a citizen any place in the. In in terms of your question on women in fact women performed so well for the first time kenya has a female governor and there are three of them and three female senators. There are a few other youth i cant remember their names. What is embracing more Women Leaders and Young Leaders the campaign is into something also determined. Been a student at the university. They have a lot of money. I dont know where he gets his money from. But i think that helps to propel him to that position. How he got and i dont know. There are financial factors. Sometime we dont have that many women with that can of money. [inaudible] with them elected on the current term in judgment how much money they have and whether they are male, female or youth. I think there is progress theres progress being made. There is hope. I was going to start to wrap up i just wanted to say most of you know that the u. S. Government funded organization but i wanted to make this disclaimer here that are remarks do not reflect the voice of the u. S. Government. We will take note. I think its been a very interesting discussion today and this is probably the first of what may be a number of discussions because inevitably the attention will turn not so much to the election itself and the results but where is kenya going postelection. And what does this mean in the longer term. I wanted to think are to guest today. This is not the first time i had worked with them. I want to thank them very much. I want to thank them for joining us today. For coming out this afternoon tea part of this discussion. Thank you. [applause]. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] President Donald Trump said he is ending a pair of weiss White House Advisory Councils sponsored by chief executives but they been resigning since saturday after trump blamed both sides for the weekend of violence in charlottesville virginia. That was between white supremacist and counter protesters. More resignations today after trump yesterday again blamed both sides. New york times reported of the 12 ceos remaining on the panel, nine said they would step down if it was not disbanded. President trump did just that this afternoon tweeting, rather than putting pressure on the business people, i am ending both committees. Thank you all. Trump issued that while in new york city today. Here we see his helicopter after leaving new york, arriving back in new jersey. He is headed back to the Trump National golf course in new jersey. Tonight book tv is in prime time with a look at military history. They talk about the history of the navies around the world and the importance of seapower. Also world war i, the american soldier experience. James wright discusses his book on vietnam. Book tv in prime time all this week on cspan2. Every month book tv on cspan2 features an indepth conversation of an nonfiction author. His latest book is if you can keep it. His other books include amazing amazing grace. Michael lewis will talk about his book on november 5 including the latest, the undoing project. Join us for indepth, the first sunday of the month at noon eastern. Thats the tv on cspan2 next, ill look at mother nature. James elsner says the increasing ocean warmth is making hurricanes stronger and tornadoes have a more powerful punch. He discussed the future of storms. His speech is one hour. Thank you. I only wear one hat also. I really think of myself as a scientist. Thats all i do. If you do science for a long enough time, they put you in positions like being the chair of the department so its not something that you seek out, but its something that happens be to yo because you do a lot of science. I like to think of myself as a