Rose funding for charlie rose is provided by the following bank of america, life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Glor in an historic ruling in a first for africa on september 1st Kenya Supreme Court annulled the ru89s of the august president ial election. The court ruled that the election which declared incumbent you the incumbent the winner was ruled with illegality. Last week raila odinga withdrew from the vote claiming the rerun will be worse than the previous one, earlier today a Senior Member of Kenya Electoral Commission fled to the u. S. Due to Death Threats ahead of the election. Mean whale the chairman of the commission conceded that he couldnt guarantee the election would be fair. Joining me now to talk about the constitutional crisis looming over kenya is salim loan, he is the Senior Advisor to raila odingo and former director of the United Nations news and Media Division under coffin a nan. Welcome. Great to be here. So explain to me right now how does mr. Odinga feel about a, the possibility of a new election . Is he going to, is he aing it that or no. No, he has cat gorically stated in the last few weeks that he would only participate in the election if some changes were made that were demanded by the Supreme Court when it annulled the election swrz so what would satisfy him and you . Well, im not important. It is him and the ken quan people. This election, as you said, was riddled with fraud from endtoend. So much so that the Supreme Court, which no one expected, would overturn the election. Our courts dont turn president ials elections when the president has won. They annulled it and he, all he has been saying he wants, what kenyans want is a fair election. We dont want anything more than that. If the Electoral Commission should follow the guide lines of the Supreme Court. But you talk about this moment, it electrified africa when the Supreme Court did this. Here is hope for our continent struggling for democracy. But it has been going backward what backwards in kenya,. Glor some say they have gone forward because this was the first electronic voting. This was a change for kenya. You just believe it wasnt done in the right way. Well look, it is not what i believe, the evidence of it is magazinessive. Why did a very conservative Supreme Court, raila odinga said if he lost this election again, remember, the last two elections, last previous elections were both rigged. In 2007 Mass Violence broke out and it took the personal involvement of conned leeza rice who traveled to kenya to make sure that they coshared the presidency, coshared basically the presidency with raila odinga. Because raila had won. So this is a history we have of election fraud. But this time, it was greater. Glor as a kenyan, explain to me the importance, the strategic importance of kenya to the United States and the United States to kenya. Sure. First of all, kenya, is one of the closest allies of the United States and of the west generally, without question. The largest embassy in african africa, u. S. Is in nie robi it is vital nairobi. It is vital to u. S. Interests because it is a key cog in economic and Security Framework that exists in the world at the moment. As you know in somalia we have the al shabaab terrorism and they just killed 300 people the other day. So that, both its economic potential, which is enormous. Kenya is a very outgoing, democratic open society. Democratic except at election timement and for the region as a whole, if kenya goes, so goes the region. That region has had several wars and millions of deaths, somalia, drc, ethiopia, in sudan, it is a it is a very crazeer place. Kenya is the one stable place. And that is why the u. S. Takes so much interest. And unfortunately this time around, unlike in 2007, 8 when we had violence, the u. S. Is taking a backseat in the sense that they are leaving everything to the envoys who are there in nairobi. And this is why mr. Odinga was in london last week, met ministers, addressed the et cetera. And that had an impact. On the situation. Glor so. Engagement from the u. S. Glor do you feel like are you getting that engagement . I think were getting a little more engagement since the trip to the u. K. But i think what will trigger greater engagement right now is what happened in the last 24 hours. As you said, the commissioner who runs the election himself said, forget about that lady who shall it Death Threats had to flee the country. He himself, the chairman of the Electoral Commission said i can no longer guarantee a free and fair election. My staff dont listen to me. Et cetera. And yet he is saying that this is how astonishing kenya can be, i still want to hold the election. Glor so explain to me what raila odinga wants to see specifically in order to agree to an election. Actually it is quite simple. He wants an election, which is not rigged. The hast one was rigged by the Supreme Court. Glor what has to be done. To give you a simple example it is an electronic election. Glor right. And there is a server, all the votes that are cast are copied on to forms which are scanned and placed into a server. At each polling station its forms are signed by all the parties. And that server contains the history of the election. We want access to independent people to that server. In the election on august 8th, the Supreme Court demanded that the Electoral Commission open that server to scrutiny. Do you know that the Electoral Commission refused the Supreme Court order . So its as simple as that. Glor the charge from Uhuru Kenyatta supporters is that are you not going to support any election that you dont win. Every side has its propaganda. And the New York Times itself, after the election on august 8th, it wrote a scathing editorial against raila odinga saying he is making a lot of fus. Glor right. But what happened they withdrew the editorial when the Supreme Court ruled. We have this astonishing situation, we have kenyans who really live in fear in terms of speaking out openly on making decisions are taking up the cry for freedom and the rule of law. And yet were not getting the support from the u. S. Or the u. K. And the other countries. Glor it is a dangerous time for kenya. Is there room for compromise anywhere here . There is always room for compromise, raila odinga has always said there is room for compromise, but there is no room for compromise in terms of not endearing to what the Supreme Court ordered. We want a fair election. We cannot have a situation where the election will be a little more fair than was last time when it was not fair at all. Glor according to the election, at least what the election saird, there was nul iified, 54 of the vote went to kenyatta. And 45 to raila odinga. Yeah. Glor have you done polling, how much support do you believe you really have . Oh, we believe we have much more support. I just want you to look at what happened before the election to show you why jubilee rigged this election. Elections are routinely rigged, 2007, pass violence, 2013, this time around the rigging went ten steps further. They killed they tortured and killed a weak before the election, the key official in charge of making it happen, right, and for protecting the vote, protecting the tallying and transmissions of the vote. He was killed. This has never happened in ken can before. So why was there this determination, and with so much other evidence too, that the rigging was going on, why this determination if there was so confident of winning the election. They were not. Because they knew that they did not have the support. Glor are you concerned that all that, you are inciting any more violence or danger by not agreeing to an election. Its a very interesting question. Because that is what some of our critics say. But the person, or the group that is inciting is the government. For example, when the Supreme Court made that historic decision, the president Uhuru Kenyatta initially said for a couple of hours, he accepted it. He didnt agree with it but he accepted it. Then he went on the war path. He began abuse the justices, saying they conducted a coup destat against him and how could four justices overrule millions of kenyans who voted for him. And then he began threat ening them. He said he would fix them when he was back in office he would fix them. Not only that, led to mobs surrounding the Supreme Court of ken quenia and the chief justice called the chief of plises for help, and the guy refused. This son the record. The chief justice asked for help for the people beseiging his court, and the chief of police said no. Glor so what is the relationship between kenyatta and odinga. Tell me about that back story. Well, look, first of all, they have been political rivals for almost a decade. Raila supported kibaki in the 2002 election. And kibaka was running against uhuru so there is that rivally. But the rivalry came to a full when kenyatta who had been charged by crimes against humanity and against his running mate, the u. S. At that time in the u. K. Took a clear position that they would not be too comfortable with those two running the kenya government, because of charges against humanity. So that was a very rough election and the two had to win it by whatever means. And they rigged it. And so there is some bad blood between the two because raila but since then they had a reasonable relationship, their opponents as politics goes. So it is not, there is no personal animosity that is the issue here. The issue is so clear, it is that the rule of law is rapidly unraveling when the chief justice says im prepared to die for my views. When this commissioner flees with Death Threats and poipts out that if this election is held there will be violence. That is what she said. She didnt just flee, she said there will will be violence if this election was held. Glor there was already violence before the election. There is nothing compared to what could happen. The violence has been held. Most of the violence, do you know that every Single Person who has been killed has been unarmed and been killed by the police . Swrz do you believe mr. Odinga is in mortal danger. Well, last night i was terrified. I havent slept last night because he went to visit a very close ally and friend. An important finance year for the party at his home because the home had been battered down, the doors battered down and police had invaded and preventing people from leave. This was against a court order. He went to that house and he was not allowed to leave. When the prospective president of a country, potential president of a country is kept gengs his will kept against his will, this is of another republic. And so i mean, were in a very bad spot. But i think the issue of whether we can have the october 26th election, raila has been proved 100 right. He has been saying from the very beginning are you not taking steps to make it free and fair. And now the chairman of the Electoral Commission himself is saying, that i cannot guarantee a free and fair election. He is saying my own staff dont listen to me. Just imagine, the chairman of the commission, because they have all been bribed or intimidated by the government. Glor do you believe this is a Tipping Point for kenya . You know, this will definitely be a Tipping Point for kenya if they proceed with the election in a situation where everybody is acknowledging that it cannot be free and fair. Glor but if they proceed on october 26th despite what you are saying, i guess that just to return to this, if raila odinga is not endorsing that in anyway, you dont believe that the potential for violence and danger is in its there regardless. Well, the most important thing is this. You cannot expect the democracy which we are, that to ask somebody please participate in an election which will be more rigged than the last onement because as you know, they have introduced new laws in the middle of this election, which will make it harder to neglect ate it by the Supreme Court. Glor what will you do if they hold the election on the 26th and kenyatta declares himself a winner. We will protest t is our right to protest. You cannot allow a dictatorship to entrench itself once again. But can i not see how the international community, which is very influential on kenya by the way, you know what happened, it was very important. The minute they came out, immediately, even before the elections result was declared, mr. Carry took a hard line, told raila to concede and move on and said some things including i was told that people on the rose would vote and yet i saw no people voting, can a former secretary of state say that, what people are alleging, that people are going to vote. It is a terrible situation. And now we have the potential of fixing it. We have the potential of being democratic, the potential of restoring rule of law. Which is rapidly unraveling. Glor so who can fix this . I tell you, who kenyans can fix it. But they need the help of the United States and the u. K there say long history of the u. S. Intervening when there is a crisis. This time, it is very low level u. S. Embassy doing it all. We need a high level engagement to ensure that the government will agree to holding a free and fair election, under the law, we need 90 days, in those 90 days, the changes can be made, the commissioner who resigned, yes, the changes can be made but as things stand now, it cannot. Glor thank you for your time. Thank you. Glor mike wallace is a distinguished professor, historian and the pulitzer prizewinning coauthor of gotham, a history of new york city to 1898. His new book, longawaited second volume in the gotham series is called greater gotham. A history of new york city from 1898 to 1919. Two decades in the making, the book traces new yorks transformation into one of the worlds greatest cities. Make wallace joins me now from chicago. Another one of the worlds great cities. Im pleased to have him on this program. Professor, so the first book covered 375 years. This one is only 20, why were these years 1898 to 1919 so important . This was a period when new york became a recognizably modern city that were familiar with now. It also moved from 1898 when it merged with brooklyn and manhattan and the outer boroughs, so called, to 1919 when it was an established megalopolis. The amount of material that was available to reckon with in doing this 20 year period was enormous because it has been a very hot subject. And its now possible to do relatively easy Research Online because so many books of when theas had been digitized. But the choice of 1919 as an end point is the point when new york becomes the def corival to london for the status of financial capitol. World. Glor were these years 1898 to 1919 in your stementation the most important generation in the citys history . Its hard to pin down importance because it is a constantly moving target, you have to go to the 1820s to the 1830s with the digging of the eerie canal which was critical because it established new york as the link between industrializing europe and still agricultural hinterland of north america. Once that route was connect, capitol flowed in, labor low flowed in, ideas flowed in, theater flowed in, commodities flowed in and on the other way, cotton, wheat and so forth tallied across the atlantic. Once that link was established, it would run differently in different periods but the establishment of the link was probably the most important period. So professor, talk to me about 1898. This is when all the boroughs came together. Correct. I think to understand what happened at the political level, you have to understand what is happening at the economic level. The country as usual and the city were going through a boombust cycle, boom bust war, boom bust war, this happened over and over again, it continues to happen. This book starts when the city is coming out of the Great Depression as it was called of the 1890s. And it was at this moment that people on the order of jp more begun and John D Rockefeller decided that the Free Enterprise capitalism model was for the birds. If you had competition between firms they would cut prices and lower profits. If you lowered profits, you had to scrimp on labor. If you scrimped on labor, then unions would form, if you repressed the unions and there was a lot of repression in the 1890s then you developed socialist resistance to capitalism. This was madness as far as morgan and rockefeller was concerned. Theirlusion was solution was to engineer the first great merger move nment american history. And thousands of small competing companies vanished into hundreds of gigantic kormingses on the order of u. S. Steel. This was they felt not being robber barons although they did very well out of this process. But it was a progressive move. It was going to illuminate ruinous competition and allow for longterm planning smoothing out the Business Cycle and even cutting labor if for more of a share. So the idea that mergers, the koition was good, the con sol daition was good, the model that they a applied to the political sphere, they thought the notion