Russia is suspected of spreading disinformation in Kenya by suggesting that the UK has been interfering in the African country’s elections.
Accusations of Britain and the US undermining Kenya’s democratic process have been widespread on social media and fake news websites in the country, prompting anxiety in the Foreign Office.
Concerns have been raised in other government departments in the past month about a “Russian connection” to the anti-British propaganda, according to a senior Whitehall source. The picture is not clear-cut, however, with some Foreign Office mandarins believing that the disinformation originates solely from Kenyan campaign sources.
Fears about the potential involvement of Russia in spreading anti-UK sentiment abroad comes as the Electoral Commission has launched an investigation into whether Moscow interfered in the Brexit campaign.
The watchdog is “in dialogue” with Facebook and Twitter after claims that Russia tried to influence the US presidential result and concerns from intelligence agencies that Moscow is trying to destabilise the democratic process in Britain. In the run-up to Kenya’s elections on August 8, and a re-run presidential election on October 26, there was a significant increase in apparently manufactured and co-ordinated social media posts attacking international observers and diplomats, as well as opposition candidates.
Their distribution was helped by the fact that mobile penetration among Kenya’s 44 million people is up to 87 per cent and the country has one of the fastest mobile internet speeds in the world. Propaganda was circulated on fake websites, including those titled Foreign Policy Journal and CNN Channel 1, as well as on Twitter as hashtags, paid search on Google and sponsored posts and ads on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram timelines.
Much was aimed against Raila Odinga, the opposition candidate for president. In Kenya most propaganda posts were attributed to western PR firms and strategists hired by both camps. Cambridge Analytica, a data business with headquarters in London that worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and a second UK business, BTP Advisers, were hired by the campaign behind Uhuru Kenyatta, the incumbent Kenyan president. The US political consultancy Aristotle was contracted by Mr Odinga’s side.
BTP Advisers — run by Mark Pursey, a former senior Liberal Democrat activist — was accused of stoking anti-British sentiment in the last Kenyan elections in 2013. In this electoral cycle, antipathy towards the UK rose after the involvement of western observers in the first poll. The western scrutineers — led by John Kerry, a former US secretary of state — were widely discredited for rubber-stamping a process that was later found to have been seriously flawed by the nation’s Supreme Court.
Anti-UK sentiment rose among Mr Odinga’s supporters after the British high commissioner, Nic Hailey, made a statement with other ambassadors calling for the re-run presidential election, which the opposition had pledged to boycott, to go ahead. The envoys criticised both sides but within minutes of their statement the hashtag #EnvoysofDoom started trending on Kenyan Twitter, condemning them as backing the incumbent president.
One Twitter account urged Theresa May “to immediately fire & investigate @HCNickHailey for meddling in the election of a foreign state”. Others called for Mr Hailey and Robert Godec, the US ambassador to Kenya, to leave the country and accused them of trying to “dictate terms”.
Reports emerged in the Kenya media last year that Mr Odinga had hired 15 “spetsnaz”, former members of the Russian special forces, as bodyguards. The Foreign Office declined to comment.
