2007 — Kenya's Disputed Election Turns Deadly

On December 27, 2007, Kenyans voted in a presidential election — and when Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over Raila Odinga, the result was fiercely disputed. European observers judged the count flawed, and protests exploded along ethnic lines across Nairobi, the Rift Valley, Nyanza, and the Coast, turning a disputed tally into a national emergency.

The 2007–2008 post-election violence killed an estimated 1,200 people and displaced more than 500,000 — Kenya's worst crisis since independence — before Kofi Annan brokered a power-sharing peace. The figures state the stakes plainly, and the ending matters too: the violence was stopped not by force but by negotiation, and a shared government was the price of peace.