Almost a decade ago, I penned an op-ed arguing that the coverage of northern Kenya by the mainstream media is lazy, limited and lacks thematic framing. Conflict and terrorism thus become the predominant lens through which the region is viewed. I argued that the news media — which commands a large viewership and readership — turns its attention to northern Kenya when terror and other forms of conflict occur. But this framing has rich historical precedent.

From the Shifta war in postcolonial Kenya to the al-Shabaab attacks in the last decade, the Kenyan media has systematically constructed an image of the region as conflict-centric without wrestling with the historical and contextual underpinnings.

In the traditional sense, the news media plays a critical role in informing citizens on diverse issues. As a primary agenda setter, news media possesses the essential power of telling its audience what to think and how to think about health, conflict, poverty and development, among other issues of national and international importance.

In their assessment of the mass media, Maxwell McCombs, and Donald Shaw — the fathers of agenda-setting theory — argue that mass media owns the attribute of influencing “the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda.” News media assemble issues for the public and, through the order of presentation, have the unique ability to tell the public what to think about. Therefore, journalists are not just leaders in information dissemination; they control the framing of these issues.

Robert Entman, who conceptualised framing in journalism, affirms that media gatekeepers select “some aspects of perceived reality, making them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation.”

Kenyan mass media has prominently covered conflict and terror in northern Kenya, informing the public about the wars and the terror experienced in the region. It has framed these incidents in such a way that those Kenyans who have never visited the area, assume that these events dominate the region.

Coverage of Northern Kenya and Africa

Framing in the news media dictates how the public makes sense of how and why issues occur. In his seminal studies on framing types in the news media, Shanto Iyengar introduces two framing types in the news media: episodic and thematic framing.

Iyengar postulates that episodic framing takes place when media gatekeepers attribute social problems to individuals. This occurs when the media covers an issue as a single event without demonstrating why these societal challenges arise.

Thematic framing is when the news media presents information holistically, with a rich in-depth analysis of why the issues covered are occurring. Therefore, if journalists frame an issue episodically, news consumers attribute the challenges to the perpetrators, ignoring societal factors that have contributed to the challenge presented. On the other hand, if an issue is thematically framed, citizens consuming this information point fingers to broader trends and social conditions.

In an article titled Media Framing of Westgate Mall and Garissa University College Terror Attacks in Kenya: News Frames, Responsibility and Major Actors, Kioko Ireri explores how Kenyan newspapers framed the Garissa University and Westgate mall attacks. Ireri concludes that 70 per cent of the sampled news articles received episodic framing. This is consistent with studies on the intersection of conflict in Africa and the Western press.

When al-Shabaab started carrying out large-scale attacks across the country, the media demonstrated clearly how it views attacks depending on where they occur. For instance, prominence was given to the Westgate terror attack, leading to quick coverage. The same treatment was not extended to the Garissa University incident, the worst attack by al-Shabaab in Kenya.

While this can be attributed to the proximity of Kenyan reporters to Westgate, the slow reaction and negative portrayal of the episode in Garissa demonstrated that the location of an attack establishes disparities in how Kenyan mass media covers terrorism in northern Kenya.

Coincidentally, the relationship of the Kenyan mass media with northern Kenya mirrors how mainstream media in the West portrays African countries. It is common knowledge that western press coverage of Africa is awash with negative portrayals of the continent and mainly involves parachuting in white men to cover complex issues.

When al-Shabaab started carrying out large-scale attacks across the country, the media demonstrated clearly how it views attacks depending on where they occur.

Kenyan mass media is a replica of news outlets from the global north. It has been argued and established that the only time Africa is given attention is when events are dominated by negative issues such as poverty, conflict, and natural disasters.

American news organisations send in their journalists to cover news events in Africa. This culture leads to media frames that construct a negative image of Africa and presents the West as a saviour, hence the criticisms. Furthermore, as Lauren Kogen argues in her article Not up for debate: U.S. news coverage of hunger in Africa, American news media organisations largely ignore issues in Africa, and the few that grab the gatekeepers’ attention are dominated by “negative and sensationalist aspects of African politics.”

Similarly, and just like their global counterparts, editors in Nairobi normally parachute in prominent Nairobi-based journalists to cover these conflict stories. The absence of local voices in the construction of narratives from northern Kenya makes it difficult for the rest of the country to have a standard, positive image of this region that other areas enjoy.

This explains why reporting on significant issues in counties like Mandera, Garissa and Marsabit takes longer than when similar issues occur in counties like Nairobi and Mombasa. News outlets employ prominent reporters to cover the latter counties, while the marginalised ones are left to a pool of reporters parachuted in from the capital. Because of a lack of contextual knowledge on the complexities of community-government relations, they submit reports that end up either misrepresenting the issues or framing them in a bad light.

Okari on the Garissa attack

Take the case of Dennis Okari, the prominent Kenyan investigative reporter who has presented some of the best investigative pieces in the country. Okari was deployed to cover the Garissa University attack.

In a follow-up story, Okari travelled to Dadaab, the refugee camp dominated by Somalis, to interview locals and get a sense of what should be done to curb these attacks. He filed a story titled “Children of a Lesser God”, implying that locals in Garissa County viewed Kenyans from other parts of Kenya as inferior to themselves and therefore deserving of death. The title itself defeats the purpose of accurately informing the public on what transpired. Furthermore, the journalist strongly relied on official sources and some victims, leaving out local voices to paint a picture of why such attacks occur in the region. The framing of this particular story cements the argument that parachuted reporters often fail to inform Kenyans holistically on why northern Kenya continues to face conflict and other key challenges.

Moreover, such careless reporting has an impact on the image of these marginalised counties. It also has an economic impact: Kenyans from other parts of the country living in these counties have been forced to leave, leaving a gap in sectors like education, health, and government services. Such careless reporting further contributes to the lack of critical services needed to contribute to the advancement of the entire region.

Just like their global counterparts, editors in Nairobi normally parachute in prominent Nairobi-based journalists to cover these conflict stories.

Another similarity between Western press coverage of Africa and the relationship of the Kenyan press with Northern Kenya is that US mass media has failed to provide fair reporting about issues in Africa, as it tends to magnify official US foreign policy. The foreign policies of Western countries shaped the Western media’s coverage of issues outside their borders after the Cold War and have continued to do so to date.

It has been argued before that the Kenyan government has systematically marginalised communities in the north since independence. This can also be said of the Kenyan media, whose relationship with northern Kenya reflects how successive governments have dealt with the counties of the region. When Kenya became independence, counties in the north were neglected, which explains the region’s acute poverty, underdevelopment, and lack of security.

Therefore, Kenyan media’s limited and negative coverage of issues in the region accurately symbolises how elites in Nairobi think of places like Garissa, Wajir and other counties in the north.

Correspondents in the north 

Others might counter that lack of attention, and negative framing can happen in other regions. However, my argument is that counties in the north continue to face issues that need the attention of the press. While there are indeed correspondents in these counties, their remuneration is often unsustainable as they are paid per story filed.

I spoke to several correspondents from the region in confidence, and they informed me that it is a struggle to file stories that touch on vital issues because of the constraints they face. They are not treated like their counterparts in Nairobi and other counties who are armed with the technical and human resources necessary to produce great news stories. One argued, “We don’t have essential tools needed to thrive in filing important reports from this region. This reality makes it difficult for us to file rich stories from this region.” This correspondent confessed that they sometimes receive as little as US$100 a month, meaning it is nearly impossible to lead a decent life as a correspondent in northern Kenya.

Mass media in Kenya has suffered losses that have led to job cuts across Kenya. Mediamax, which owns K24 and the People Daily newspaper, has terminated a significant number of staff contracts.

The Kenyan mass media must also accept these criticisms and prioritise changing how it relates with northern Kenya.

Like elsewhere across the globe, news media in Kenya is market-driven. With the explosion of digital media, advertisers have found cheaper ways of selling their products, pulling out from advertising in the traditional media, leading to more job losses.

However, this should not be a reason to provide limited and war-centric coverage from these counties. Editors should provide the essential tools needed to cover crucial stories from this region adequately. While salaries and upkeep in the mass media remain a challenge across the country, the hurdles faced by reporters in northern Kenya make it difficult to challenge the established narratives.

Under the devolved government, and for the first time, counties solely determine the budget for building schools, expanding hospitals, providing electricity, and constructing road networks, among many other things. The county governments should create an environment that will entice investors to come down and start businesses. However, for devolution to prosper, accountability from institutions within and outside governments is important. Therefore, the media should step forward and play its crucial role of holding county elites accountable for their activities. The Kenyan mass media must also accept these criticisms and prioritise changing how it relates with northern Kenya.

First, it should provide the essential tools needed by local correspondents to cover important stories in the region. Devolution means there is plenty to report about. If the national government can choose to change its handling of this region, so can the mass media. Journalists in places like Marsabit and Wajir can cover more stories that would inform audiences in other parts of Kenya and enable policymakers to propose key recommendations that will lead to the development of this region.

Second, the missing perspectives of local news sources with an in-depth contextual knowledge of the region further reveal why terror coverage by the Kenyan press is often episodic and lacks in-depth analyses of why these attacks occur. Perhaps incorporating more local voices will contribute to achieving a more thematic and balanced reportage of terror in the region, and indeed in Africa.

Third, citizens from this region should establish their own media spaces where they can construct their own stories. There are several media organisations owned by wealthy businesspeople and politicians in the north. But these outlets tend to reach only locals and operate primarily in local languages. This limits other Kenyans from being exposed to stories coming out of this region since they command a smaller audience than their national counterparts.

Perhaps incorporating more local voices will contribute to achieving a more thematic and balanced reportage of terror in the region.

Mainstream national media that operates in the national languages would be an opportunity to produce fair, balanced, and holistic news items that create a fresh image of northern Kenya. We should also be careful about news outlets owned by politicians. With devolution, reporters in these counties should work on stories that inform the public on how their leaders are using public resources. Having these leaders own news outlets is dangerous since they have the power to influence the content that is published.

Moreover, in order to challenge the narratives constructed by the traditional media, it is essential to point out that digital media allows us to create a different image of northern Kenya, Twitter and Facebook enable users to counter narratives pushed by the elite Kenyan outlets within a few minutes. However, it is also important to highlight that while social media provides this unique opportunity, most Kenyans still depend on traditional media for information. The existing digital divide across the country is a reminder that narratives pushed by mass media in the capital still dominate the country.

Zambia’s presidential election was expected to be a tight two-horse race between President Edgar Lungu and perennial opposition candidate Hakainde Hichilema. But early results suggest something very different. With 62 constituencies officially declared by the Electoral Commission of Zambia, Hichilema is on 63% of the vote with a vast lead of 28% over Lungu, who is trailing on 34.6%.

Economic desperation and growing distrust of President Lungu has led to a nationwide swing towards Hichilema’s United Party of National Development – which has increased its vote share in all the vast majority constituencies released so far.

Amid growing desperation within the ruling party, President Lungu has taken inspiration from an unlikely source – former US President Donald Trump. Despite enjoying all of the vast powers of incumbency that mean that presidents in Africa win 88% of the elections they contest, Lungu and his lieutenants are complaining that the elections were rigged against them.

In a statement released on Saturday 14 August, Lungu went so far as to say that the presidential election was “unfree and unfair” and should therefore be nullified.

President Lungu’s statement of 14th August 2021

This is not a strategy that has been cooked up overnight – anticipating a tough election, the government has been laying the foundation for this strategy for weeks. It has three main components: 1) exaggerating the violence committed by opposition parties, 2) pretending that the police cannot cope with the level of unrest, 3) claiming that this violence only occurred in opposition strongholds and so the vote in these areas is particularly suspect.

This strategy has little credibility, which is precisely why it is so divisive – and has the potential to push Zambia into the biggest political crisis in its 30-year multiparty history.

The state of play

Lungu’s strategy is born of desperation.

While only two-thirds (40%) of constituency results have been released, it already looks like Hichilema’s lead is unassailable. What is more, he also has a comfortable gap to the 50%+1 of the vote he needs to win in the first round of voting. An early hope for the Patriotic Front government was that support for Hichilema would be largely confined to his traditional strongholds, with a small increase in county’s more populous and cosmopolitan regions such as Lusaka and the Copperbelt.

But this hope was quickly dashed on voting day when large turnout across the country suggested that Zambians has decided that Lungu’s time was up. As those standing in long queues in Lusaka compounds told us “we are all here to vote for change” and “you don’t turn up so early to support the incumbent.”

These early predictions were soon proved right by the – painfully slow – official release of the results by the ECZ. Hichilema has already built a big lead on the Copperbelt (56%) and Lusaka (61%), which account for 31% of all registered voters. There was even bad news for President Lungu in his supposed “heartlands”. In Eastern Province, for example, Lungu is currently on 54%. This sounds like a decent performance until you realise that he secured 79% of the vote in this region in 2016 – a fall of some 25% in just five years.

With a string of minor candidates queuing up to concede defeat – and either congratulate Hichilema or reference support for a transfer of power in their speeches – the writing is on the wall. Moreover, both the UPND’s own vote count based on party members, and the official Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) carried out by domestic monitor group CCMG are widely expected to “confirm” a first round victory for the opposition candidate.

The Trump card

Where the margin of votes between rival candidates is small, last minute rigging can help leaders get over the line. It is already clear, however, that this will not be the case in Zambia in 2021. Lungu appears on course to lose by a bigger margin than President Rupiah Banda in 2011, and the UPND seems to be much better placed to detect foul play.

Already, representatives from a number of opposition parties intervened to prevent the ECZ from releasing results for Feira that did not match the figures they had received from their own teams. After a delay, ECZ announced figures that the opposition party agreed with. If this trend continues, there will be no chance for the government to fiddle its way back into power.

Lungu has therefore decided to pursue a very different strategy: following the example of Unites States President Donald Trump, he has attempted to turn defence into attack by alleging that the elections were actually rigged by his rival. This isn’t something the Patriotic Front simply cooked-up on voting day – instead, having watched Trump carefully, they began laying the foundation weeks in advance. Doing so is critical to make subsequent claims seem more credible, and to prime supporters to be on the look out for certain “developments” to ensure that later misinformation is interpreted in the desired way.

In President Lungu’s case, this plan has had three main components:

1) exaggerating the violence committed by opposition parties

Ahead of the polls, President Lungu and state-aligned media consistently exaggerated violence committed by the UPND in an attempt to create the impression that political unrest and clashes between rival cadres were the fault of the opposition.

This was a smart ploy. Civil society groups, international donors and the world’s media are often tempted to accept a degree of repression in order to sustain peace and order, such is the concern about the economic and human impact of conflict in Africa. As recent research has explained, campaigns to promote peace have regularly been subverted to repress critical voices, replacing democracy with peaceocracy.

The problem for Lungu was that it was fairly transparent: while it is clear that cadres affiliated with both sides have committed violence, the post-election statement of the CCMG domestic monitoring group reports that twice as much violence was instigated by individuals affiliated to the PF as by those aligned to the UPND.

2) pretending that the police cannot cope with the level of unrest

In line with this approach, the government sought to manipulate political unrest in order to secure a tighter grip on the political process. Most notably, a sad incident in which two individuals – who PF has claimed as its supporters, although the UPND suggests that one actually was an opposition cadre – was used as a pretext to deploy the military to the streets.

This was an unprecedented move, and caused considerable concern among opposition leaders – especially when it became clear that the military were not only being sent to “hot spots” but also to areas in which there had been no significant violence.

One of the justifications that the president used to deploy this strategy was that the police had been overwhelmed. This was also unpersuasive, however, as the growing politicization of the police under Lungu’s leadership, and the fact that the police have predominantly intervened to arrest opposition cadres and not ruling party ones, suggests that the rise in electoral violence was largely a product deliberately engineered by the regime itself.

3) claiming that this violence only occurred in opposition strongholds and so the vote in these areas is particularly suspect.

Despite being in full control of the police and army – with a police officer in every polling station and the military now deployed across the country – the ruling party has responded to its dismal electoral showing by claiming that its voters were intimidated.

In an initial statement released on 12 August, the government claimed that the level of opposition intimidation meant that the vote in its regions could not be considered free and fair. The implication seemed to be that the elections should be cancelled in opposition areas, while the results in government strongholds should be retained.

A subsequent statement on 14 August made a bolder claim, with the headline: “President Lungu Declares General Election Not Free and Fair”. The second iteration of the complaint – which followed a complaint made to the ECZ leaders at Mulungushi, where the votes are being verified and announced – suggested that a key problem was that “PF party agents had been chased out of polling stations”.

These claims rested heavily on one incident – a tragedy in which PF North Western Province Chairman Jackson Kungo was killed by a mob that suspected him of bringing pre-marked ballot papers into a polling station. Kungo’s killing was deeply saddening, and was rightly condemned by all sides. But there is no evidence that it was part of a wider pattern.

Instead, CCMG domestic monitors found that PF party agents were present in 98% of polling stations, and a growing number of legal organisations including the Law Association of Zambia, observers, and civil society groups, have lined up to publicly doubt Lungu’s claims. Perhaps most significantly, six of the most prominent minor candidates came together to say that if anyone had tried to rig the election it was him, and that he should stand down.

Six presidential candidates write to President Lungu https://t.co/VTXEuwHWyw

— The Zambian Observer (@ZambianObserver) August 14, 2021

For its part, UPND leaders have pointed out that there were also incidents of violence against its leaders and supporters on polling day, but they have tended to receive less attention because they were not amplified by state media.

Can it work?

Donald Trump was forced to stand down as US President, but not before he had done inordinate harm to the country’s political system. Not only did Trump intensify the fault lines at the heart of US politics, but the attack on the US Capitol represented one of the most shocking and dangerous moments in the country’s history.

Ultimately, he was forced to stand down due to the fact that key democratic institutions – and just as importantly the individuals within them – did their civic duty.

So what can we expect in Zambia?

The country’s democratic institutions have also been weakened by thoroughgoing politicisation and the use of appointments to promote figures loyal to President Lungu himself. But there are already signs that despite this, he will likely not get his way.

Many in the military are also understood to be unhappy about the idea of being deployed for political purposes, and so the president may not be confident that soldiers ordered to repress protestors will carry out the instruction. Meanwhile a judge of the High Court also issued an injunction against the blocking of social media platforms – a critical source of communication for both democratic activists and normal citizens – after a case was brought by the Chapter One Foundation. As a result,  WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook have been turned back on, at least for now.

Chapter One Foundation petition

In both cases, the extent of public support for Hichilema – which has been trickling out, despite the delays by ECZ – is likely to have been critical. Soldiers and judges are also members of Zambian society and will want to be able to hold their heads up high if Lungu is forced out of State House.

Given this, it critically important that the ECZ continues to release results. Although the slow rate of progress has frustrated many and left many across the country anxious and fearful, the Commission has now released three batches of results that are clearly good news for Hichilema and bad for the President. We believe this demonstrates considerable independence. The ECZ’s continued announcement of results so far, despite the PF’s complaints, suggests that the ECZ is unlikely to yield to pressure from President.

Indeed, some analysts believe that it has been an inability to effectively infiltrate and control the ECZ that has led the president to make inflammatory public statements in a bid to intimidate the Commission into submission. Electoral commissions and officials therefore deserve strong and unequivocal support and encouragement from everyone who cares about the future of Zambia

If they continue to release results as they have been, the pressure on Lungu to stand down may soon become insurmountable.

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This article was first published by Democracy in Africa.

Apart from the devastating economic impact of lockdowns and related regulations, the pandemic is undermining the well-being of democracy in Africa.

In prioritising public health, governments have drawn on emergency legislation to implement lockdown regulations. These measures narrow the gap between authoritarianism and democracy and can be used as a pretext for authoritarian regimes to hold on to power.

The pandemic struck at a critical time for some of Africa’s democracies and coincided with several elections scheduled for 2020 and 2021. Although some polls went ahead, others were postponed and rescheduled.

The health of democracy in Africa has been in question for some time and postponed elections can add to growing fears of democratic backsliding on the continent.

Postponed elections can threaten democracy in Africa for two reasons: moving an election is a controversial decision that can lead to instability, and uncertainty over whether elections will take place at all does not secure democracy.

Nowhere is this more evident than from Ethiopia’s June 21 parliamentary, regional state council and local elections. Rescheduled twice since August 2020, the postponements were not only a source of controversy, but are also linked to the conflict in the northern Tigray region after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) went ahead with elections in that region in 2020. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s decision to postpone elections was interpreted by the TPLF as a move to extend his power, hiding behind COVID-19 public health concerns.

Further controversy arose after many opposition leaders were jailed, other opposition parties boycotted the polls, and constituencies in some regions were excluded from these elections based on security concerns and registration irregularities. Those regions will allegedly be voting in September 2021, but no elections are on the horizon for Tigray. This makes it hard to call these elections free and fair. Some experts believe that COVID-19 has “dramatically redirected Ethiopia’s political landscape deeper into authoritarianism”. Ethiopia is a key player in the Horn of Africa and the second most populous country on the continent. Its democratic trajectory is therefore of great importance.

Another case to consider is that of Senegal. Regional and local elections in Senegal have been postponed indefinitely from March 28, the third delay since 2019. Senegalese are already protesting the government crackdown on opposition leaders, corruption, and COVID-19-related economic decline. The Senegalese government responded with violence.

Postponing elections is not unheard of but the decision should not be taken lightly. Elections must take place within a specified period, usually five years. As a failsafe, an additional 90-days (usually) are factored in. If the time between elections exceeds this, a country can experience a constitutional crisis.

Delays can be interpreted by opposition parties as a move to consolidate power. Especially where elections have been postponed under states of disaster legislation during the pandemic, democracy has been rattled.

Many governments have abused their additional powers. Freedom House reports that since the start of the pandemic, respect for human rights and democracy has deteriorated in 80 countries across the globe.

Abuses of power include violent crackdowns on protestors, experienced in Nigeria; detention or arrest of government critics, experienced in Zimbabwe; and social media blackouts and media restriction as experienced in Uganda, and Tanzania. To this list can also be added the recent government-sanctioned internet blackout in eSwatini during pro-democracy protests in the country.

It is also possible that proceeding with elections in the name of upholding democracy could have the opposite effect. Higher voter turnout is desirable since it is more representative of the voting population. Despite COVID-19 precautions implemented by election management bodies, citizens may still decide that the risk of infection from venturing out to vote at polling stations is too great and abstain.

Amid a security crisis and the pandemic, Mali proceeded with two rounds of legislative elections in March and April 2020. This combination of security and health threats meant only 23.22 percent of eligible voters turned up to cast their votes. More concerning than the low turnout is the confirmation of these results by Mali’s Constitutional Court.

Regular elections are the hallmark of democracy and allow citizens to voice their views on governments. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, elections have been postponed worldwide at a rate not experienced before. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance reports that between February 21 last year and June 21, 78 countries and territories globally have postponed elections citing coronavirus concerns.

African countries make up 17.9 percent of this total. The pandemic has created many new challenges for governments, not the least of which has been upholding democracy in conditions which call for social distancing and limited numbers of people gathering in groups. Indeed, finding a “democracy-human security balance” is proving to be one of the more complicated tasks facing governments during the pandemic.

COVID-19 could spark a global reconsideration of the electoral process, with remote voting options, such as online voting, enjoying renewed interest. It is important to remember that elections are not the only measure of democracy. Factors such as a level playing field for opposition parties, citizen choice as to whether or note to vote, voter turnout and a free public space are important indicators of the quality of democracy.

Elections are important and should be allowed to go ahead where possible. But what the pandemic teaches is that timing and safety are everything.

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This article was first published by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).