User:Jamesrjb7/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
2021 Kenyan constitutional referendum attempt

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because of a recent update I saw on the twitter account and poll aggregator AfricaElects, which informed me that the Building Bridges initiative had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I was struck that this rather major update was not reflected in the Wikipedia article, particularly because far more minor electoral and constitutional updates provided by similar European and American poll aggregators I follow are reflected in their respective wikipedia articles. In my personal experience seeking basic information on any political updates (particularly constitutional questions or horserace polling), Wikipedia often does a better job than most dedicated poll aggregators at reporting current, unbiased data, but often come up short in the African political space. As Kenya's elections are coming up in August, I figured that such a major reform attempt that would have massive and immediate implications ought to be better covered, particularly as English is one of the official languages of Kenya, and is the language typically used for academic instruction. It's fascinating to me that Wikipedia says that this article has been expanded in French, but not in any other language, particularly because Kenya does not have a history of French colonialism. While the article provides dates and a basic overview of the legal challenges to the Building Bridges Initiative, it does not clearly communicate on a first read what the amendments would actually change, or why they were continuously rejected. While there are 14 sources listed, the last is from September 2021, so the article isn't exactly current.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section:

The framing of the Wikipedia article title does bother me with the use of the word "attempt," and not clearly communicating that the reform process is ongoing in 2022. I think this lead section, which correctly bolds the Building Bridges Initiative, might've been left over from a time when the article was titled differently, and functions well as a very basic overview of the scope of the proposed changes, while not getting too deep into the content of the proposed amendments (expanded upon in the Constitutional amendments section). The lead section also does a good job of summarizing the process through which the amendments were rejected, though this is not expanded upon further in the article. All the information appears relevant, and is correct when traced to the sources, but again, the lead section does leave out critical developments in the past 6 months. While there is no noticeable bias in the way the information is portrayed, there is little mention of any opposition to the BBI apart from court rulings, so one could walk away from this article with the wrong sense that this is not a contentious mass political issue, rather a battle occurring purely behind closed doors. There is also little information on the political context for the BBI and its rejection, and no reference to either the 2017 or 2022 elections, which the BBI respectively arose out of, and would directly alter.

Tone:

The tone of the whole article is hard to discern in such a brief and incomplete overview, but again there does seem to be an over-reliance on —if not a bias towards— describing the rejection and appeal process, rather than any larger political context for the BBI, which might point to bias towards a pro-BBI position by eschewing any mention of public discontent. There is little mention of the actual constitutional ramifications of the amendments either, instead defaulting to general language such as "changes relating to corruption; divisive elections, [etc.]...," allowing the reader to fill in the blanks in their own head depending on their political leanings what these changes actually are, apart from "the reestablishment of the Prime Minister of Kenya and two Deputy Prime Ministers." Additional language like "national ethos, inclusivity, and shared prosperity" is hardly specific enough, though its hard to tell if this was a purposeful omission because of author bias.

Evaluating Sources:

The links do work, and the sources support what is said in the article, though as noted before, this is mostly cut-and-dry procedural information not relating to content of the amendments themselves, but rather the process by which they were rejected. Odd that the article includes citations from the official BBI website, and yet does not fully or thoroughly describe its content. Most sources refer to a "referendum," which did ultimately prove to be the legal undoing for the amendments, as the executive's roll in ushering through a national plebiscite was ruled illegal, but the content of the article makes little reference to the referendum itself except to say that "30 of the 47 county assemblies approved the BBI referendum. The approval of at least 24 counties is needed to trigger a plebiscite." Though this is more of a content complaint, the difference between the BBI referendum and the subsequent "plebiscite" is not made clear. Sources are varied, and appear unbiased, though as this is a government-backed referendum, my additional sourcing for this article will probably lean harder into independent journalism (a hard thing to find in Kenya at the moment), rather than either government websites or friendly media outlets. Al Jazeera and Reuters both recently published updates on the BBI referendum including the March 31st court decision, so I will be checking source framing against widely-reputed unbiased media sources (though local perspective is obviously important).

Talk Page:

There is one update, in which user Celestina007 left the feedback: "Thanks for creating." As far as I can tell, apart from them and the original editor, TheSandDoctor, no other contributors have made a pass at this article. I'm struck that its categorized as part of the "unknown-importance Africa articles" and "low-importance Africa articles" lists, as BBI is a sweeping reform package with massive consequences for the upcoming August elections should Kenyatta find some way around the Supreme Court's ruling. It is also part of the following WikiProjects: Africa / Kenya, Elections and Referendums, and Africa, rated as a stub-class in each, and "low importance" in WikiProject Africa.

Further Content Observations/Conclusions:

There are no images giving any context to the BBI, the referendum, or the subsequent court rulings. The French article, which is more complete in terms of content as well (which I will translate from as a guideline at least for the background/context section), also features images of President Kenyatta and former Prime Minister (and opposition presidential candidate) Raila Odinga. From my very cursory overview of the French article, it references the BBI referendum more concretely than the English article, even providing a table for results, but these have not yet been filled in. The article's main shortcoming is the lack of information, which leaves open opportunities for bias in the lack of diverse perspectives and narratives being represented in a widely accessible article. In making additions to the article, I will make an effort to continue the objectivity of the current draft, while adding more information to provide a more inclusive and in-depth picture of BBI's political context.