Together with the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) we are producing a documentary entitled "Kenya's Democratic Journey" which aims to serve as a key resource for peace education and the promotion of future elections in Kenya. In the meantime we are publishing here the teaser and the many interviews we have done of the most important electoral stakeholders in Kenya which are posted here below and within this text. So far we are able to show you the interviews of:
Henriette Geiger - European Union Ambassador to Kenya- Wafula W. Chebukati - Former Chairman of Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC)
- H E Amb Bankole Adeoye - African Union Commissioner for Political Affairs Peace & Security
- Danvas Makori - Commissioner of National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC)
- Roseline Odede - Chairperson of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR)
Anthony Okara - Project Coordinator of Pro-Peace Kenya (Kenya's Democratic Journey)- Jean Mensa - The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Ghana
- Harun Hassan - Executive Director/CEO Kenya National Council for Persons with Disabilities
- Davidetta Browne - Chairperson of the National Election Commission of Liberia
- Mosotho Moepya - Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of South Africa
We had an interview session with His Excellency Raila A. Odinga, leader of the Azimio Coalition and candidate in the 2022 presidential elections in H.E Raila Odinga has been a presidential candidate five times and was a former prime minister of Kenya from the year 2008-2013. On March 2018, he made a handshake with former president of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta to put aside their political differences and unite through a handshake. In the interview, he spoke about how the youth get involved and motivated into the democratic and electoral process and the lessons that Africa can learn from the journey on reforms and institutional development on the conduct of elections in Kenya, as well as his vision for Kenya among other topics.
ECES through the NCIC supported the elections of 2022 in Kenya via the Pro Peace Kenya project funded by the European Union, where the electoral process was conducted in a more transparent and democratic way than any previous election, making it the most competitive and peaceful.
Kenyans set a new and higher electoral bar for themselves, their neighbors, in Africa and around the world demonstrating that closely contested elections can be credibly resolved through sufficiently independent Institutions and mature political actors that at the end, even though not agreeing with the decisions of the Court, accept democratically the results.
It is for this reason that ECES seeks to document again another successful outcome of the elections in Africa with a focus on the last peaceful elections in Kenya.
The film Director of this documentary is Jarreth Merz who is a filmmaker and actor raised in Ghana, Switzerland, the US and Germany. As a director in 2006 he founded Urban Republic, an award-winning film production company based in Los Angeles. Awards include the EU prize for best documentary in Zimbabwe, the Visions du Réel audience award, the best African documentary award and a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award, best American documentary, in Los Angeles. He has worked with ECES for the last 12 years thanks to the collaboration and friendship with our founder and executive Director, Fabio Bargiacchi.
Jarreth's work is rooted in observing life as it presents itself in all its complexities as shown in his documentary, An African Election co-produced with ECES. That movie follows the 2008 presidential elections in Ghana, West Africa. The elections serve as a backdrop for the feature documentary that looks behind-the-scenes at the complex, political machinery of a third world democracy struggling to legitimize itself to its first world contemporaries. In chronicling the rough-and-tumble process of a democratic election, the documentary becomes a meditation on the dream of democracy itself. The film screened in the World Documentary competition at Sundance Film Festival.
The collaboration between ECES and Urban Republic continued with the implementation of the Political Safari a mobile-cinema democracy and voter education outreach project in Africa. This activity was implemented in Ghana from 2012 and then expanded to other African countries. The Political Safari toured the 10 regions of Ghana with a mobile cinema. Voters across the country had been educated on the electoral processes and inspired to commit to peaceful elections in 2012. The political safaris were than implemented in Kenya (2013), Madagascar (2013), Comoros (2015), Zanzibar (2015) and the Republic of Guinea (2015) also in collaboration and with the support of the ECES via projects funded by the European Union.
