New Constitution, Same Old Challenges: Reflections on Kenya's 2013 General Elections

This book follows up on the publication Tensions & Reversals in Democractic Transitions published by Society for Interantional Development and Institute for Development Studies after Kenya's 2007 elections. It is a product of a series of consultative meetings by a group of civil society actors and academics convened by SID and Uraia Trust to capture the lessons learnt from Kenya's 2013 General Elections and interrogate the actors and factors involved.

The book paints a picture of an electoral environment which, buoyed by far-reaching institutional reforms driven by the newly promulgated Constitution of Kenya 2010, raised high expectations among Kenyan that the 2013 elections would not only be peaceful but also a lot more credible than those held in 2007.

In the end however, the manner in which the 2013 general elections were conducted did not show evidence of any remarkable departure from what was expereinced previously, despite the raft of legal and institutional reforms carried out.

The book attempts to explains why things went the way they did and explores what needs to be done differenly in future to ensure more free, fair and credible elections.

The book has been launched by Prof. Yash Pal Ghai, a scholar in Constitutional Law, on December 2nd, 2015, in Nairobi.

Download: Media brief | Publication (PDF)