Diplomacy expert Meredith Preston discusses her role in resolving Kenya’s 2008 election crisis 

Then UN Secretary Kofi Annan’s deep experience in conflict resolution was a major factor in helping Kenya achieve a unity government during that pivotal moment – Mcghie

Fifteen years ago, Kenya was rocked by a violent political, economic, and humanitarian crisis that erupted after former President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election in December 2007. Diplomacy expert Meredith Preston McGhie was part of a team of leaders who successfully negotiated an agreement for a new unity government in Kenya. 

Ms McGhie has spent her entire career working to resolve conflicts around the world, including conflicts and instability in Africa. She was based in Nairobi at the time of Kenya’s 2008 political crisis.

In the Doha Debates “The Negotiators” podcast, McGhie described her behind-the-scenes work in the aftermath of the election, when election observers were unable to confirm a winner.  “The elections commissioner came on the radio, after having disappeared from public view for a while, and expressed unease about the counting and tallying of votes, and then declared President Kibaki to be the winner,” McGhie recalled to senior producer Laura Rosbrow-Telem.

“There was a very hasty swearing-in ceremony and already we began to see the violence erupting.”

Shortly afterwards, mass protests broke out in Kenya and police shot hundreds of violent demonstrators. “With the rapid onset of the violence, we saw a huge number of high-level delegations descend on Nairobi with different offers to try to mediate, to try to calm the violence, to try to begin a process in order to address the crisis,” McGhie said.

McGhie offered insight into her working relationship with a key negotiator who arrived on the scene in Kenya — the late Kofi Annan, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning diplomat who served as Secretary General of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006.

“Kofi Annan boarded a plane from Geneva and we were all awaiting his arrival in Kenya in the hopes that talks would begin very, very quickly. Annan fell ill on the tarmac quite dramatically before the plane took off, and was hospitalized for a couple of days,” McGhie said. She recalled how, while recovering from his health setback, Annan spoke to leaders in Kenya and across the continent to understand the depth of the crisis.

During the podcast, McGhie recounted how when Kofi Annan finally arrived in the country, his skills as a negotiator were in high demand.

“Things were often chaotic and fast and it was this high-powered atmosphere,” McGhie said. “But Kofi Annan could take these elegant moments of pause and just be lovely and very human and very personal. That was another facet of how he engaged as a mediator.”

McGhie detailed how Annan took key steps to involve the people of Kenya, including speaking regularly to the press and engaging Kenya’s political parties in quick action to stem the violence: 

“Annan and the members of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities met with faith leaders, traditional leaders, other political parties, youth leaders, women leaders, NGOs, editors and media personalities and a number of other eminent persons across Kenya…They did this at the beginning, so that they had the voices of Kenya in their ears.”

President Kibaki and his core team were shaken by some of the pressure that had been leveraged on them by the United States

Meredith McGhie

At one point, Annan and a team of diplomats gathered the political parties together to reach an agreement. “We were whisked off to an aircraft and flown to an undisclosed location — a beautiful lodge in a game park,” McGhie said. “We were sequestered in this lodge with the parties, with the technical teams, with Annan and his advisors. There were rounds of talks, but we didn’t make the progress we wanted to make so we returned to Nairobi.”

According to McGhie, at the time of the talks, US President George W. Bush was on a state visit to Tanzania, accompanied by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Annan asked for American support and President Bush sent Condoleezza Rice to meet with President Kibaki and his team, as well as opposition leader Raila Odinga and his team.

“President Kibaki and his core team were shaken by some of the pressure that had been leveraged on them by the United States,” McGhie recalled.  

Annan also invited Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete to join the discussion. “Tanzania, as an example and a regional friend, was particularly important,” McGhie said. “President Kikwete was trusted and seen as a regional statesman.”

Finally, an agreement was reached to end the crisis that had killed around 1,300 people and displaced more than a million Kenyans from their homes. “The parties signed the agreement on February 28, 2008,” she stated. “Their own delegations hadn’t seen the agreement until after President Kibaki and Raila Odinga had signed the agreement and shaken hands.”

The final agreement in Kenya included a grand coalition government, the creation of the position of prime minister, power-sharing agreements across the cabinet and, crucially, an agreement among the political parties to consult and collaborate going forward.

McGhie feels that former U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan’s deep experience in conflict resolution was a major factor in helping Kenya achieve a unity government during that pivotal moment. “Certainly, Annan was guided by so many of the tragedies and failures that he had seen in peacemaking in his time at the UN, not only as Secretary General but as the head of peacekeeping operations in the 1990’s, particularly in the face of tragedy of the Rwandan genocide and inaction there,” she said.