Kenya: World Bank Boss' Leaked Memo Stirs Controversy
11 January 2008
Posted to the web 10 January 2008
Alex Ndegwa, Edith Fortunate, James Ratemo And Judy Ogutu
Nairobi
World Bank Country Director, Mr Colin Bruce, was a man on the spot as a
confidential memo he authored supporting President Kibaki's re-election kicked
off controversy in Nairobi and Washington.
The leaked January 8 briefing note, originating from the World Bank Kenya
office, lays out the case for accepting Kibaki's victory on the basis of "oral
briefings and documents from senior UNDP officials" who "monitored the overall
electoral process".
The memo, quoted in a story by the Wednesday issue of The Financial Times
claims "the considered view of the UN is that the ECK announcement of a Kibaki
win was correct".
However, Michele Montas, a spokeswoman for the UN Secretary-General, denied
that the UN had adopted that position.
UNDP officials said they had neither monitored the elections nor provided any
assessment suggesting a Kibaki victory.
The memo, also handed to Ghanaian President John Kufuor, was also disowned by
the Government.
A statement by the Presidential Press Service said, "The Government's attention
has been drawn to a document addressed to HE John Kufuor authored by Mr Colin
Bruce The document is alleged to have been drawn in consultation with
"emissaries" of President Kibaki and Hon Raila Odinga."
The statement said at no time did the President send any Emissary to Bruce to
discuss a document of any nature.
"The Government, therefore, categorically disassociates itself with the content
of that document," it went on to say.
The World Bank memo claims that investigation had revealed more poll fraud on
the side of ODM than PNU. The memo claims, "The considered view of the UN is
that ECK announcement of a Kibaki win is correct".
Bruce's memo says data available indicated the highest reported turnout in a
Kibaki stronghold was 90 per cent, but in Raila's strongholds, there were six
heavily populated areas with reported turnout of between 102 to 116 per cent.
The memo acknowledged that the EU draft report cited two constituencies in
which Kibaki's margin was inflated, but adds the same does not say whether that
invalidated the overall results.
It concludes that the reader is left to determine that the inflation could not
have been higher than 48,000 votes against the ECK-declared margin of victory
of 230,000.
The memo blames the widely held view that the Government rigged the poll on a
"highly media-savvy opposition".
It explained that neither the ECK nor PNU were effective in communicating that
they could not field 'agents' in Nyanza as required following the reported
murder of an agent.
Bruce told the paper that the bank had no position on the result of the
elections and he "was simply reporting the information that was available to me
to headquarters".
World Bank officials in Washington backed Bruce and released a series of other
communications from him, stating these showed his balanced approach to the
elections.
None of the other briefing notes regarding the crisis revisits the question of
whether Kibaki won the election.
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"<<s_trans.gif>>
_______________________________________________ Ugandanet mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---------------------------------------
