Conflict Snapshot – Uchaguzi Bila Balaa – 4 August 2022 – Kenya Election

In the run-up to the general election, Kenya is faced with camouflaged ethnic and regional alignments to propel political leaders to power, resulting in a highly competitive and polarized pre-election phase. While the political atmosphere in the coastal region and Garissa County appears to be one of “near normalcy,” undercurrents of impending tensions are threatening peaceful elections.

Search for Common Ground (Search), with support from the European Union and in collaboration with the Human Rights Agenda (HURIA), Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), Kiunga Youth Bunge Initiative (KYBI), Tana River Peace, Reconciliation and Development (TRPRD) and Ijara Women for Peace, has established an Early Warning and Early Response (EWER) system through embedded community observation and social media listening, with the aim to harness the shared intelligence between communities, civil society organizations and government authorities to identify and address imminent threats to peaceful elections, particularly looking at conflict trends, drivers and locations that could potentially trigger or experience violence. Social media listening monitors online conversations, with a focus on Facebook and TikTok, to track hate speech and misinformation trends and how these could potentially affect conflicts offline.