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| Q & A with Anna Brandt, Swedish Ambassador to Kenya |
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On Friday, 26th October, 2007, Anna Brandt, the Swedish Ambassador to Kenya attended a security training session for female political aspirants from Kisauni and Changamwe constituencies. She made the following comments during and after the meeting.
What is your sense of the women who are running for political office this year? All of the women aspirants that I have met have taken it upon themselves to fight and to continue to fight in spite of the obstacles and I think this is very welcome. A country where half of the population is not really represented at political level is not a true democracy. My firm belief is that if Kenya is to prosper and develop, both men and women must lead this country, both at national level and at local level. I think without more women politicians, Kenya will not move forward as quickly as it would otherwise. Then Kenya will be able to catch up with neighboring countries. Kenya actually stands out as a country with an extremely low level of political participation by women. The neighboring countries including Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, all have representation of women that is much, much higher than Kenya. Most of these countries have around 30 percent of women in parliament, while Rwanda is close to 50 percent women. It would be a very welcome push to see more women in political positions, making decisions. I am encouraged that there are more women vying than ever before, and that ought to also be reflected in more women winning political seats in the election. Of course, what is worrying, in this respect is the violence. The violence that we have been seeing directed toward women candidates lately is extremely worrying. It is totally unacceptable. And it’s a violation of Kenyan law and a violation of the respect for human rights. It includes the threats, abuses both physical and verbal, insults and defamation - it is the full range. I think we have to do what we can, all of us, to put a stop to that. We see that violence might deter women from standing for elective posts. The reason behind the violence is that your political opponents want to scare you away from standing for a political position. That would be a real tragedy. That’s why the issue of providing security for aspirants is an important part of the Gender and Governance Program. What is included in the GGP? The two strategic ways that have been chosen to increase security, one of them is to have these kinds of training sessions for women aspirants. The other is the Gender Rapid Response Unit (GRRU). These two vehicles are two ways of improving security, but it is not enough. Providing security for the Kenyan population is the prime responsibility of the police and they must take up this challenge and make special efforts to protect women. I know that ECK is not the police and I know that it is not their responsibility to provide security. But I think that through cooperating with the police, ECK can play a vital role in alerting the police where bad things are happening. The third agents, whom we are urging to take up their responsibility, are the political parties. They must ensure that all their leaders and aspirants are held accountable to having peaceful nominations and campaigns and that they take action against members who do not comply with this requirement. I think, in general, all Kenyans need to be vigilant in the next few weeks. The GRRU and the hotlines are available for everybody, including aspirants when they have been threatened or when they have been exposed to violence. Anyone can send in a report to the GRRU if they are hearing hate speeches or if they have received threats of violence or if they see violent actions being preformed against aspirants. Kenyans can make sure that those using defamatory language or threats or hired thugs to beat up or scare female aspirants, do not succeed in their illegal ways of gaining power. What are the challenges particular to female political aspirants? There are several impediments working against women candidates. The fact that there are so few at the moment in parliament and also at civic levels means that the norm is that a politician should often be a man. This works against women traditionally and culturally. But also the fact that you have to have quite a lot of financial means to conduct a campaign, excludes a lot of women who don’t have those financial means. Why in particular, did your country target the GGP program? We think this is a good program. We think it’s good to work through Kenyan civil society organizations, who have good coverage over the whole country and who are knowledgeable about the situation on the ground and who have a lot of contacts at grassroots levels. For us, it’s a good way of reaching out to as many women candidates as possible. There are some 30-odd civil society organisations that we are working through and for us that is a good way of channeling funds. It is a country-wide program and the ambition is to cover as much of the country as possible. The program is attracting more and more funding, with more donors coming on board. It also means that we can get out to more and more constituencies. Is there any frustration on your part, or on the part of any other donor countries, about the roll-out of GGP, that it is rolling out a bit late? Well it has been going on for some time. These aspects - about the violence and about the measure to increase security for candidates is fairly recent but training on campaign tactics and how candidates should relate to media has been ongoing. One year ago, when I came to Kenya, there were four donors supporting GGP and now we have a number that is twice as high. So, obviously, we can do more. What do you think of the electoral violence in Kenya? It is totally unacceptable. It’s a violation of Kenyan and international laws with respect to human rights. It is every Kenyan citizen’s right to stand for a political position, both men and women, and if violence is used frighten women away, this is totally unacceptable. We are extremely concerned about what seems to be an increase in violence against women candidates. Describe your ideal Kenyan election in 2007. It would be an election that would be free, fair and peaceful. It would be an election when the campaign period would be about issues that affect ordinary Kenyans. That we hopefully could move away from the personal politics and the ethnic politics that I think is dominating the scene today. Political leaders should be talking about issues that really mean something to ordinary Kenyans. I, of course, would hope that these elections will result in a much proportion number of women in both parliament and at the civic level. Are you encouraged that there are more women running? Yes I am encouraged because we have more women now than ever before in a Kenyan general election. This is very encouraging but we must make sure that they have the stamina to go all the way; that the threat of violence will not scare them away. But vying is one thing; obviously they also have to be nominated to elected positions. My hope is that they will be nominated, in such positions where they have a real chance of winning the seat. Do you think if there are more women in elected positions, there will be a natural shift to more practical issues on the ground, in terms of political focus? I would hope so, in order to have politics that are centered on improving the lives of the poorest in Kenya and ensuring that we have service delivery all over the country, especially in the underprivileged regions. Perhaps the wide gaps between the haves and have-nots will shrink somewhat. From your perspective, do you expect free and fair elections? It is my hope that we will have free and fair elections. I think that as democracy is becoming entrenched in society as witnessed by the development of the electoral processes moving in the right direction. Violence is obviously a threat to free and fair elections. But I hope that all Kenyans would want to work together to ensure that these elections are free and fair: ordinary Kenyans who are voters, as well as the politicians. Do you think that the government ought to improve security for people who are vying for parliamentary or civic seats? I think the institution responsible for ensuring the security for the aspirants is the police, first and foremost. They must make sure that the aspirants enjoy security. We also think that ECK can help by alerting the police about problems that exist when it comes to security. We also think that political parties should make commitments in terms of ensuring that their members do not threaten their opponents. The Embassies of Norway, Netherlands, UK, Canada, Finland, Germany, Spain and Denmark support the Gender and Governance Program of UNIFEM. The 24-hour emergency numbers for reporting threats, hate speech or violence against political aspirants are: 0725007400 0724008727 0738643056 0202119566 |
| Nairobi +21 Report |
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| Media Monitoring Reports |
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Find the Coalition on Accountable Political Financing reports on Print Media Monitoring of the 2007 General Elections in Kenya:
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