Mwai Kibaki There was therefore the perception that his was a Kikuyu presidency. This perception was reinforced when the President was seen to have trashed the pre- 2002 election Memorandum of Understanding with the Raila Odinga-led Liberal Democratic Party, and was further reinforced by his disputed 2007 election victory over the Raila Odinga led ODM Party being achieved nearly exclusively with the votes of the populous Mt. Kenya Kikuyu, Meru and Embu communities. The Commission of Inquiry Into Post Election Violence (CIPEV) put it thus: The post election violence [in early 2008]therefore is, in part, a consequence of the failure of President
Mwai Kibaki of the populous Kikuyu, Meru and Embu communities-who had turned up to vote for Kibaki in large numbers after feeling, in reaction to the Odinga campaign, and with the covert encouragement of the Kibaki campaign, increasingly besieged and threatened by the pro-Odinga tribes. Moreover, ODM had won the most parliamentary and local authority seats by a wide margin. A joint statement by the British Foreign Office and Department for International Development cited "real concerns" over irregularities, while international observers refused to declare the election free and fair. The European Union chief observer, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, cited one constituency where his