Kenya on the Brink

Kenya has drawn increasing scrutiny and absorbed U.S. policymakers' attention after the disputed results of the December election set off rounds of violence amongst political factions. During the runup to the elections, European Parliament member and Deputy Chairman of the German Liberal Democrats (FDP), Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, led an EU observer mission. As one of the first and leading voices to express doubts about the election process, he drew international attention to the electoral crisis. Graf Lambsdorff has argued that Kenya's electoral commission failed to establish the credibility of the vote-counting process due to unaddressed reported irregularities. Because of those irregularities, he has stated that some doubt remains about the accuracy of the official results.

Germany’s influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has called Graf Lambsdorff a “non-diplomatic diplomat” and a “radical free-market economist…who is giving his opinion on various important hot-topics in European Politics [including] the question of Turkey's EU-membership, Germany's seat in the UN Security Council, the Services Directive and the European Chemical Directive."

Lunch will be served.

This event is co-sponsored by the New America Foundation and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

Participants

• Alexander Graf Lambsdorff
  Chairman, EU Election Observer Mission to Kenya
  Member and Deputy Chairman, German Liberal Democrats (FDP), European Parliament

• Claus Gramckow
  Representative, USA and Canada
  Friedrich Naumann Foundation

• Steven Clemons
  Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
  Publisher, www.TheWashingtonNote.com