Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent.
Among the observers endorsing Kenya’s election last month were representatives of the European Union, the African Union and the Carter Center, whose delegation was led by former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Kenya’s Supreme Court, however, has disagreed with their assessment. On Friday, it nullified the results giving incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta a second term and ordered that a new vote take place within 60 days—a ruling that was being described as a first for Africa.
As Helen Epstein noted in a piece this week for The New York Review of Books, the pre-election period featured a series of worrying developments, including revelations of ties between a Dubai-based ballot-printing firm and Kenyatta’s inner circle; the arrest and deportation of foreign advisers of Kenyatta’s main opponent, Raila Odinga; and the brutal killing of a senior election official.