open Democracy News Analysis - Kenya: roots of crisis , Gérard Prunier - Comments

alleywattson on "Kenya: roots of crisis"

alleywattson — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:49:18 +0000

Most in the leadership positions are touting themselves to have the solutions for the country's problems yet many among them are known to be very corrupt. Some do not understand democracy itself as they impose leaders on to the people. Some are known to be indecisive and generally weak. I think that the clamour is ocassioned by a leadership crisis in the country.
Andy's site

brian_3 on "Kenya: roots of crisis"

brian_3 — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:53:22 +0000

It seems to me that the major problem facing Kenya following teh recent elections is that of tribalism. It may well be that the votes for Kibaki were gerrymandered by his supporters in order to keep him in power, and clearly this is not acceptable. However Raila is not the answer to the nation's problems . Raila is only where he is because he has inherited the leadership of the Luo people from his father. It is likely that this Hummer driving flash boy will prove to be no better than any other president elected on purely tribal lines and if elected to the position of president would ensure that resources, jobs etc would be allocated to the Luo people, and any other anti-Kikuyu group, rather than to where they are most needed. What Kenya needs is a leader who is above tribalism, a man who is brave enough to resist the sectarian demands from his own ethnic group and who will ensure that the whole population is dealt with fairly. Regrettably, given the behaviour of the electorate, who seem in general to have voted along tribal lines we are a long way from that.

Solana Larsen on "Kenya: roots of crisis"

Solana Larsen — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:48:41 +0000

Thanks for this frank description of the political situation - and of both politicians.

Wanjira on "Kenya: roots of crisis"

Wanjira — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:43:18 +0000

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT. In the past five years alone, the Kenyan economy has grown from the ashes of a decade of economic depression experienced in the waning days of the Moi era and known substantial economic growth evidenced by the steady rise of the Kenyan shilling against the American dollar. A functioning tax system was in place; free primary education was being provided to all Kenyan children. The country was on a steady-albeit rugged- course that would eventually have severed the cords of economic dependence on foreign governments if it was not derailed. . After enduring many years of political repression and many political detainees the last five years of Kibaki's rule, 2002-2007, have been the freest in Kenya's history. Nobody has been imprisoned with or without trial or killed or forced into exile because of his political views or for criticizing Mwai Kibaki and his government. Throughout the past four decades the country has weathered political turmoil, and oppression but its tapestry of diverse ethnicities has remained welded together despite numerous attempts to shred it. Today Kenya is in the throes of a humanitarian “national disaster: Why and how have we come to this? Misinformation peddled by the foreign British through their well funded global trumpeters, the BBC attribute the violence in Kenya to a general and sporadic outcry for democracy and discontentment with the election results by the impoverished majority and fatigue over Kikuyu domination in politics since independence. This biased reporting akin to the Belgian supported radio reporting during the Rwanda genocide has served to demonize the language groups accused of voting back the former president into and to flare up the flames of resentment against tribes affiliated with the Kibaki regime. The reality however, is starkly different: How have we come to this? 1. There is nothing spontaneous or democratic about this crisis: The current violence in Kenya was initiated by well armed hooligans and militias directed and supported by Raila and Mr. Ruto and his supporters long before the election results were declared. The looting and destruction of Kikuyu property begun in Kisumu and Kibera-Both Raila’s strongholds and has been exported to Eldoret and Rift Valley by Ruto and Karamajong militia. 2. The picture that is emerging is horrific: It is now evident that there was a well orchestrated plan to not only take the government by force even if it meant eradicating the “threat” posed majority language groups that voted in Kibaki’s favor-whose current interpretation unfortunately reads-Kikuyus. AFP, which estimated the overall number of dead in the wake of the polls at 300, quoted one senior police official as saying the events around Eldoret and nearby areas “looked very much like ethnic cleansing.” Around the area of Burnt Forest in Rift Valley Province, according to ICRC, some 80,000 people, predominantly from Kibaki’s Kikuyu ethnic group, were holed up in church and police premises. 3. Reminiscent of the Rwanda genocide and the British massacre of Kikuyu, Embu, Kamba and Meru fighters allied to the Mau Mau rebellion, the two fold strategy being applied entails : Killing masses in remote villages and a strong media campaign demonizing and minimizing the enemies: tribes that allegedly voted for the government- Kibaki . 4. What is unfolding in Kenya may be anarchy but it has also been choreographed long before the first ballot was cast. Beyond picking its name from the Ukraine’s Orange Revolution movement, the ODM election strategy was overseen by Dick Morris, the disgraced political strategist once investigated for tax evasion in the US, who was alleged to have been instrumental in formenting revolutions in Ukraine and Mexico. 5. In a Raila supporters website: jaluo.com, Raila supporters allude to a “ Rwanda scenario” and call upon their ODM members in the military and security forces to resort to “Plan B” and take the “necessary” action. This treacherous dialogue currently being drummed up by Raila and his cohorts-and condoned by the International community” - is leading the country to the brink of total anarchy. This Opposition: Puppets of destruction? 1. Raila has been always been known to resort to violence and vitriolic speech in his egotistical quest for power in the past decade. Very recently, Raila brazenly admitted that he was an architect of the 1982 coup attempt that resulted in the deaths of many and wrought destruction in the political course of the country. 2. During Kenya’s first ever multi party elections he engineered a major set back for the opposition victory by splitting the opposition movement at the eleventh hour. When the splinter political party he had formed failed to cede in to his power hungry demands he defected to the then Moi-run dictatorship at the peak of Kenyan despair. 3. Raila’s economic break came in 2001 soon after was rewarded with the Molasses Plant by the Moi Dictatorship. A Canadian firm Energem bought 55 per cent of the Kisumu Molasses plant. Today Raila’s wealth is estimated at 4 billion Kenya shillings and the “champion of the poor” drives to his slum ridden constituency in a red Hummer (value: 250,000 US Dollars) Current situation of the ground: the untold story 1. An independent IRIN run by the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Coordination today (http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76085) describes the situation in Kenya thus : NAIROBI, 3 January 2008 (IRIN) - Thousands of Kenyans displaced by post-election violence in the west of the country were taking refuge in police stations and church grounds with little or no access to humanitarian assistance four days into the worst unrest seen in the country since a 1982 failed coup. Many have no homes to return to, because they were set on fire in the wave of violence that greeted the Election Commission of Kenya’s announcement on 30 December that incumbent Mwai Kibaki had won the presidential poll three days earlier. Much of the violence was committed by civilians and generally targeted members of Kibaki’s Kikuyu ethnic group and others that support him politically. 2. The security forces are becoming increasingly divided along ethnic lines. Kalenjin army officers were said to be taking to the streets of Eldoret joining in the attacks on Kikuyus. 3. IRIN REPORT: Witnesses said most of the business properties owned by Kikuyus, Akambas, Kissii and any tribe that is perceived as having voted back the government is being hunted down and killed by roving armed groups with machetes and arrows. 4. The farms and businesses of people’s from these tribes are littered with dead bodies: hacked or burnt to death. Voices of few escapees "They stormed our house at night and burnt everything," said Margaret Wanjiru, a Kikuyu. Her 90-year-old grandmother and 75-year-old mother were both too frail to run. They perished in the fire. Jane* (*all names changed), a 38-year-old Kikuyu teacher, had lived in Moi's Bridge for 14 years. She says a Kalenjin mob broke down the gate of the school compound and looted her house as she fled with her three boys. "They were screaming," she said of the mob. They took everything "even beds", she added. "We just ran away with the clothes we were wearing.” “ On 2nd January 2008, more than 50 people – at least 25 of them children – burned to death as the church they had fled to for refuge was set alight. More than 200 people, mainly Kikuyus, the same tribe as President Mwai Kibaki, were sheltering for safety in the Kenya Assemblies of God church five miles outside Eldoret in the Rift Valley. An armed gang of young men drawn from the Kalenjin, Luhya and Luo tribes – ethnic groups which backed the beaten presidential candidate Raila Odinga – stormed the church compound yesterday morning and set it alight.” “One woman testified that the marauding militia tore her child form her arms and threw her back into the fire after she had clawed her way out of the smoldering church. Other witnesses to these attacks have testified that people who managed to escape arson attacks were hacked to death. “It all began soon after the election results were announced. A number of groups from the local community broke into war songs and raided the shopping centre next to the university. They looted all the shops that belong to Kikuyus and Kisiis. Then they broke into the rented off-campus houses of some students and then a crowd of about 1,000 people surged to the university gate and shouted that they wanted to storm the university. They demanded that all Kikuyus, Kambas, Meru, and Kisii people leave the university within two hours. All of them are armed with machetes, bows and arrows. Some are drunk and others baying for blood..” International Community-Double standards 1. The British are far from impartial in this affair and cannot be counted upon to act objectively. It is a well known fact that the British still harbor rancor against the Kikuyu for the Mau Mau rebellion that contributed to the falloff the British empire in Kenya. This sentiment was awakened when the Kibaki government cancelled Kenya’s contract with them for the provision of gas guzzling Land Rovers as the official government vehicles. 2. During the Moi regime Kenyans endured three rigged elections and not single EU government acted to impose sanctions or end their business with Kenya 3. The French foreign minister unilaterally declared that he is convinced that the Kenyan elections were rigged. That he elected to issue his misinformed and unsupported statement at the height of an ethnic cleansing disaster in the country without alluding to it, is clear evidence that the French, unfortunately are willing to have a Rwanda repeat and to play an active role in the destruction of Kenya as they did in Rwanda. 4. Between 1990 and 2002, Kenya was under the firm grip of the Moi dictatorship. With political opponents. Including the Kikuyu, sidelined, and detained and political dissent brutally crushed. Under those conditions, the British and EU DID NOT APPLY TARGETTED MEASURES. The British sold security weapons to the Moi government; 5. In 1994, tribal clashes displaced 250,000 people mainly Kikuyu farmers in the Rift Valley: the British did not apply targeted measures or urge restraint but filed away secret reports on the Kenyan situation for almost a decade. The British attitude has not changed since they illegally occupied Kenya lands in 1896: a recent study by Caroline Elkins is an assistant professor of history at Harvard University. Imperial Reckoning The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya documents the horrific scale of a huge and harrowing crime -- Britain's ruthless suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion -- but also the equally shocking concealment of that crime and the inversion of historical memory. Comment on buried but simmering truths; “"On the basis of the most painstaking research, Caroline Elkins has starkly illuminated one of the darkest secrets of late British imperialism. She has shown how, even when they profess the most altruistic of intentions, empires can still be brutal in their response to dissent by subject peoples. We all need reminding of that today." (Truly -don’t we?) --Niall Ferguson, Professor of History, Harvard University, and Senior Research Fellow, Jesus College, Oxford; author of Colossus: The Price of America's Empire and Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power Voices of Justice and Freedom

Wanjira on "Kenya: roots of crisis"

Wanjira — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:26:56 +0000

Let the truth be known that William Ruto is the man sponsoring the genocide operations going in Rift Valley through the Karamajong Guerilla Fighters, a militia with operations similar to the old known militia "the Shiftas" that fought Moi in the 1980s. Reliable sources indicate that Karamojong Guerrilla Fighters arrived in city of Eldoret where they mercilessly massacred hundreds of innocent people including women and children. Recently Ruto was reported to be out of Nairobi, and could not attend the meeting between Raila and Kalonzo. We have established that Ruto was in Eldoret meeting with the Karamojong Guerilla Fighters. Ruto knew that the only way ODM could have access to adequate firepower (KEG) was to engage the Karamojong Guerilla Fighter who are obviously known to possess insurmountable quantities of AK-47, Automatic Rifles and other sophisticated small arms. It is important to highlight the fact that Karamojong communities are cousins with the Luos, and therefore, it is the same militia that is killing people in Nyanza. It is therefore imperative for the government of the day to take decisive and conclusive action against William Ruto, and the perpetrators of genocide. We cannot afford to see one more live lost. We are also asking Hon Raila Odinga to disassociate himself with William Ruto and speak for peace and return of the nation to normalcy. Who knows whether the judicial process could over turn the ECK decision, and see a re-run of the presidential elections? Karamoja, the nomadic pastoralists of Northern Uganda and Kenya have traditionally raided each other's livestock, an activity that flows naturally from their cultural frameworks for life. During the raiding season, the raid is typically followed counter-raid with considerable loss of life. Ever since they became neighbors, raiding has gone on intermittently, not only between Karamojong and Pokot, but also between them and Jie, Dodoso, Turkana, Samburu, Marakwet, Sapiny ot Sabawot, and Bukusu. Before 1970s, Karamoja was peaceful, pastoral and traditional, but the years according to Mirzeler Young (2000) ushered in the new era of guns. The proliferation of automatic rifles (Leggett, 2000) has unequivocally infected the Karamojong culture with ills of modern AK-47 raids, which currently pose the single greatest risk to the security of the northern region. Mirzeler Young (2000) write that there are over 40,000 AK-47 in Karamojong community, while Gray (2000) estimates that there are over 100,000 automatic rifles in Karamoja. Firearms are not novelties for the Karamojong, they have enculturated them with very little fuss, just like other Iron implements, all of which are acquired from foreigners. The Karamojongs have possessed firearms since 1870 when the colonial government licensed some, and there have always been at least a few illicit firearms. The community started acquiring sophisticated guns in large quantities in the 1970s following the routing of President Idi Amin's army in Uganda by an alliance of Tanzanian People's Defense Force and Uganda exiles (Mburu, 2000). One known major source was the Moroto barracks which the fleeing Ugandan dictator abandoned intact thus allowing the Karamojong to help themselves to unlimited quantities of rifles, small arms and ammunitions. William Ruto, knowing very well that in the context of the Turkana and Karamojong people that the current governments in Kenya and Uganda are part of the insecurity problem, has incited the Karamojongs and other communities to violence, and secretly engaged the Karamojong Guerilla Fighters to inflict fear and suffering among the people in protest of the outcome of the just concluded general elections. To this end, Ruto should be apprehended as an underworld warlord who incites ethnic communities to arm and commit genocide like what recently happened in the church campus in Eldoret, For those who think the government should not act decisively and conclusively with William Ruto should read (Romans 13:4) .. for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. People Foundation, Inc, Social Transformation Advocacy Group 775 River Oaks Parkway San Jose, CA 95136 Ruto was Treasurer of Youth for Kanu '92 (YK92), a group that was formed to drum up campaign for former president Daniel Moi in the 1992 elections [1]. William Ruto is currently on trial charged with defrauding the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) of huge amounts of money through dubious land deals, but he has been out on bond. The case has been dragging in the courts for almost three years due to technical injunctions [2]. check out his profile at wikipedea... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ruto corruption galore. William Samoei Ruto (born December 21, 1966 in Kamagut, Uasin Gishu) is a Kenyan politician and former Minister of Home Affairs. He was Secretary General of the Kenya African National Union, the former ruling political party, and he has been MP for Eldoret North constituency since the 1997 Kenyan elections. He became Minister of Home Affairs in August 2002 but lost the post after the December 2002 elections, in which KANU lost to the NARC coalition. He is seen as a fast emerging powerful Kalenjin politician in Kenya's political arena. Ruto was Treasurer of Youth for Kanu '92 (YK92), a group that was formed to drum up campaign for former president Daniel Moi in the 1992 elections [1]. William Ruto is currently on trial charged with defrauding the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) of huge amounts of money through dubious land deals, but he has been out on bond. The case has been dragging in the courts for almost three years due to technical injunctions [2]. In January 2006, Ruto declared publicly that he would vie for the presidency in the next general election, scheduled for December 2007. His statement was condemned by some of his KANU colleagues, including former president Daniel Arap Moi. Ruto sought the nomination of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) as its presidential candidate, but in the party's vote on September 1, 2007, he placed third with 368 votes, behind the winner, Raila Odinga (with 2,656 votes) and Musalia Mudavadi (with 391).[3] Ruto expressed his support for Odinga after the vote.[4]. He resigned from his post as KANU secretary general on October 6, 2007 [5]. Ruto attended Wareng Secondary School, Eldoret, Kapsabet Boys, Nandi and has a BSc in botany from the University of Nairobi.

Wanjira on "Kenya: roots of crisis"

Wanjira — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:22:24 +0000

http://pichavision.org/files/Strategy_ODM.pdf

Kenya: roots of crisis , Gérard Prunier

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:29:30 +0000

Gérard Prunier is research professor at the University of Paris and director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa.

He is the author of The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (C Hurst, 1998), Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide (C Hurst, revised edition, 2007), and From Genocide to Continental War: The Congolese Conflict and the Crisis of Contemporary Africa

Also by Gérard Prunier in openDemocracy:

"Darfur's Sudan problem" (15 September 2006)

"The DR Congo's political opportunity" (14 March 2007)

"Chad, the CAR and Darfur: dynamics of conflict" (18 April 2007)

"Chad's tragedy" (7 September 2007)

"Sudan between war and peace" (1 November 2007)

"Khartoum's calculated fever" (5 December 2007) (C Hurst, 2006)

To many people in the world - and even to many Kenyans themselves itself - the violence which followed the elections in Kenya on 27 December 2007 has come as a surprise. Unfortunately, it shouldn't have. The combination of economic and ethno-political factors in Kenya had created an explosive mix which was just waiting for the right - or rather "wrong" - circumstances to explode. The 2002 elections had been a lucky near-miss; this time, the favourable configuration that operated then did not repeat itself.

Kenya's "democratic" politics

To understand the Kenyan crisis in the context of its national, regional and global situation, it is necessary to examine the regime which followed independence in 1963. Britain's withdrawal from the country had taken place amidst a considerable fear that the Mau Mau anti-colonial insurrection of 1952-1960 might impinge upon the politics of the new state and lead to further violence. Nothing of the sort happened - partly because of the elevation to the presidency of the leader of the nationalist movement Jomo Kenyatta, who once in power swerved from radical nationalism to conservative bourgeois politics.

Kenyatta was a Kikuyu (or Gikuyu) and the enigmatic Mau Mau movement had largely been a Kikuyu phenomenon (most of the 12,000 rebels or "suspects" killed by colonial forces in a brutal campaign were Kikuyu). This had caused the British wrongly to conclude that Kenyatta was the leader of the Mau Mau. But in any case, on becoming president Kenyatta - head of the Kenya African National Union (Kanu) in an effectively one-party state - embraced extreme tribalistic politics and packed the new "Kenyan" bourgeoisie he promoted with Kikuyu and members of related tribes such as the Embu and the Meru. At the time of his death in 1978 most of the country's wealth and power was in the hands of the organisation which grouped these three tribes: the Gikuyu-Embu-Meru Association (GEMA).

Kenya has forty-eight tribes, with three - the Kikuyu, the Luo and the Luhyia - together representing almost 65% of the population. Meanwhile, the GEMA tribes during Kenyatta's time (1963-78) composed perhaps 30% of Kenyans, almost all concentrated in the highlands of the central province. These figures meant that in order to square the ethno-political circle in Kenya, power-brokers had to forge deals between the three big groups and somehow relate to the shifting gaggle occupying the fourth corner.

In Kenyatta's time the deal was simple: the Kikuyu and their smaller relatives, after making an agreement with the minority tribes, ran everything. The Luo, who eventually tried to challenge this ordering, were forcefully marginalised as the prudent Luhyia looked on. After Kenyatta died in 1978, his vice-president Daniel arap Moi - who was from the Kalenjin minority tribe - inherited the mantle of power on the understanding that he would not upset the arrangement designed to keep the two other large tribes (and particularly the Luo) out of power.

But Daniel arap Moi proceeded to use his new status to cleverly divide his Kikuyu allies (amongst them the man who would be his successor as president, Mwai Kibaki), so as progressively to sideline them. By 1986, Moi had concentrated all the power - and most of its attendant economic benefits - into the hands of his Kalenjin tribe and of a handful of allies from minority groups (see Peter Kimani, "A past of power more than tribe in Kenya's turmoil", 2 January 2008).

But Kikuyu ascendancy had been reined in only, not destroyed. Under Jomo Kenyatta, the Kikuyu - claiming martyr status for their sufferings during the Mau-Mau "emergency", and relying on tacit government support - had spread beyond their traditional territorial homelands and "repossessed lands stolen by the whites" - even when these had previously belonged to other tribes. Thus Kikuyu "colonists" had fanned out all over Kenya, often creating strong rural antagonisms.

Kenyatta's successor, Daniel arap Moi, used a consummate juggler's skill to keep the ethno-political balance working in his favour. At the same time, the first two multi-party elections after other movements emerged to challenge Kanu (in 1992 and 1997) were occasions for carefully state-managed ethnic violence designed to achieve two objectives: keep the dangerous Kikuyu underfoot, and pit the Kalenjin's minority allies against each other in order better to control them.

By the time of the 2002 election, however, the system had run its course: foreign donors were alienated, President Moi (having ruled for twenty-four years) was getting old, and a "democratic" opposition was gaining momentum. But if everybody agreed on the principle of ridding Kenya of its Kalenjin-based authoritarian state, the question of who and what would be the replacement remained open.

Moi had a brainwave: he thought that the best way for him to maintain his influence over politics after leaving the presidency would be to pick as the governing party candidate Kenyatta's own son, Uhuru. This artful move, Moi calculated, would rally the Kikuyu behind a prestigious but empty symbol (Uhuru was not overly bright and his name spoke louder than his personality). But the stratagem backfired completely and the opposition united behind the veteran Kikuyu politician, Mwai Kibaki, thus creating a unique situation in which both leading candidates were Kikuyu.

In other ways, however, they were very different: one embodied the ghost of yesterday's near-dictatorship while the other was seen as offering the hope of a democratic opening. This contrast felicitously de-ethnicised the election, turning it into a contest between the old and the new. At the time Raila Odinga, the leading Luo politician, tirelessly campaigned for Kibaki and deployed his tribal followers behind a man who - albeit a Kikuyu and a Kikuyu with a past - was seen as the candidate for change. The economic stagnation of previous years meant that many of the expectations that were invested in Kibaki were of an economic nature: Kibaki, it was hoped, would restart the economy and then proceed to share out its benefits more equally.

The Kibaki administration

Mwai Kibaki was elected president in December 2002 with over 62% of the vote. The country's foreign backers were only too quick to salute the polls as "a triumph for democracy". In a way they were right - the polls had been free and fair, and the candidate for change had been elected. But in another way this was a hasty form of wishful thinking because the ostensible "de-tribalisation" of the election had been due more to a series of fortuitous coincidences than to a real decline in the appeal of ethnic politics.

The key words in the campaign, however, had been "hope" and "change", and to some extent the new Kibaki administration managed to deliver the goods. The economy did pick up and Kenya witnessed a spectacular economic recovery, largely based on Keynesian economic recipes and helped by a favourable international environment.

This can be illustrated by the annual rate of growth in 2002-07, which reveals a gradual improvement from -1.6 % in 2002 to 2.6% by 2004, 3.4 in 2005, and an estimated 5.5% in 2007. But this was only one side of the economic coin. Social inequalities also increased; the fruits of economic growth went disproportionately to the already well-off (and, among those, to the Kikuyu well-off); and corruption reached new heights, matching some of the excesses of the Moi years. When John Githongo, the man appointed by President Kibaki to fight corruption, blew the whistle in January 2005, he had to flee to Britain in fear of his life (see Michael Holman, "Kenya: chaos and responsibility", 3 January 2007). Githongo is himself a Kikuyu, and his denunciation of a massive series of financial scandals in which hundreds of millions of dollars had vanished was seen as a betrayal of his tribe as well as of the government he served.

Moreover, the security situation in Kenya deteriorated steadily in these years, with the ordinary people bearing the brunt of a triple process:

* a growing wave of routine crime in urban areas

* rival agrarian claims leading to pitched battles between ethnic groups fighting for land, particularly around Mount Elgon and in Kisii

* a running feud between the police and the Mungiki sect, which left over 120 people dead in May-November 2007 alone.

Mungiki is a bizarre cross between pre-Christian Kikuyu neo-traditionalism and an extortionist gang. The sect ran protection rackets on the matatu (collective taxi) routes, helping it to prosper among the poorest urban neighbourhoods and among the landless-peasant squatters in central province; it also has a tradition of hiring its muscle-boys to political candidates during election campaigns. In 2002, the Mungiki had backed the losing Uhuru Kenyatta camp. This cost it dearly in terms of political clout, and it had desperately tried to recover the lost ground by intensifying its terroristic hold on the slum population and on the matatu owners.

The accumulating result of these various processes was a feeling of deep dissatisfaction - not so much with President Kibaki as a person but with his entourage, with his robbing cronies, and with his incapacity to sympathise and do something about the plight of poor Kenyans (made all the more shocking by the level of economic growth the country was enjoying). Raila Odinga, the candidate of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), was then able to capitalise on that frustration in a way that fused various types of motivation:

* ethnic (the Kikuyu have grabbed everything and all the other tribes have lost)

* political (Kibaki betrayed his promise for change)

* social (crime and violence are out of control)

* economic (what is the point of economic growth when it does not bring any benefits to the ordinary citizen).

As the electoral campaign neared its climax in December 2007, the ODM opposition enjoyed a widespread lead in opinion polls and seemed ready to sweep Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) out of power.

The December 2007 election

The election on 27 December 2007 was both a parliamentary and a presidential one. At the legislative level, 2,548 candidates from 108 parties were vying for 210 seats; at the presidential level, three candidates - the incumbent Mwai Kibaki , ODM leader Raila Odinga and former foreign minister Kalonzo Musyoka (who had split from the ODM) - were competing.

Everybody (including himself) knew that Kalonzo Musyoka had no chance of winning and that he was simply angling for the position of a strategic post-election ally who could sell his support to a probable minority victor in need of additional backing. Kalonzo Musyoka is a Kamba, and the Kamba - although closely related to the Kikuyu - had chosen the British camp during the Mau Mau emergency. This gives them a hybrid status in the Kenyan ethno-political landscape, in which they hold the capacity to swing either with the Kikuyu or against them.

The polls were a messy business for a number of reasons. The voters' rolls had been poorly updated or at times not updated at all. Some dead people were still on the rolls and electors who had changed residence had not been properly struck off in one place and re-registered at their new address. The rules governing the help which could be given to illiterate voters (up to 80% of the electoral body in some remote constituencies) were poorly enforced. Foreign and national observers were not always given free access to the polling stations, and later to the ballots.

But all in all, the parliamentary segment of the election proceeded smoothly. The definitive results have not at the time of writing been officially posted, but a provisional tally (based on 181 out of 210 seats) is possible. Twenty-two parties won seats, although only four can be considered as "serious" (the eighteen others have between one and three MPs, sharing twenty-eight seats between them): :

* Raila Odinga's ODM, which won ninety-two seats

* Mwai Kibaki's PNU, which won thirty-four seats

* Kalonzo Musyoka's splinter ODM-K, which won sixteen seats

* Uhuru Kenyatta's Kanu, which won eleven seats.

The results speak for themselves: with 45% of the MPs, the opposition has a clear majority over the incumbent administration .

This is what makes the results of the presidential election definitely suspect. Kenya's electoral commission (ECK) declared on 30 December that Kibaki had garnered 4,584,721 votes against 4,352,993 for his rival Raila Odinga, and immediately proceeded to inaugurate the incumbent president as the winner. This tight margin (little more than 230,000 votes, about 2.5% of those cast) is very fragile in view of the following facts.

In seventy-two of the constituencies, the figures on the ballot forms signed by the ECK returning officers and the agents of the candidates differ from the figures released by the national counting centre. At Ole Kalou constituency, for example, local ECK figures gave Mwai Kibaki 72,000 and Raila Odinga 5,000 out of 102,000 registered votes. But by the time the figures for that same constituency were released at the central level, Kibaki's winning tally had jumped to 100,980 votes (i.e. 99% of the registered voters).

The pattern was repeated elsewhere. In Elmolo constituency, Kibaki was said by local ECK officials to have won by 50,145 votes, which then translated itself into 75,261 votes at the national level. In Kieni the discrepancy was between 54,337 (local level) and 72,054 (national tally). In various other constituencies (Lari, Kandara, Kerugoya) thousands more had "voted" in the presidential election than in the legislative one, even though the two ballots had been held concurrently .

All this points to a limited but widespread form of rigging which would not have had such catastrophic consequences had not the race been so closely contested. (After all, if several constituencies have probable rigging levels of 10,000-30,000 votes, there is no way a victory by 230,000 votes be considered solid.) On 1 January, Samuel Kivuitu - the respected chairman of the ECK - admitted : "I don't know who won the election and I won't know till I see the original records, which I can't for now until the courts authorise it".

It seems that what happened was that the Mwai Kibaki vote was artificially inflated rather than that Raila Odinga's vote was tampered with. The evidence seems clear: even if gerrymandering had distorted the legislative vote vis-à-vis the presidential one (during the Moi years, the "enemy" Kikuyu constituencies had seen their demographic weight systematically eroded in this way), how could the pro-ODM trend at the parliamentary level turn itself into a contradictory support for the anti-ODM president? The possibility of such a split-personality vote is remote, as it requires that almost all those voting for minority parties would also have voted for Kibaki.

The bloody aftermath

The results of this manipulation have been disastrous. Almost as soon as the ECK hastily proclaimed Kibaki to be the winner, both the Nairobi slums and the western province exploded - the violence of the slum-dwellers reflecting their social frustration and the westerners' arson-cum-machete attacks stemming from their hatred of the Kikuyu "colonists". The political violence should thus be seen as both tribal and socio-economic; because, even if far from all Kikuyu are rich beneficiaries of the regime, many rich beneficiaries of the regime are Kikuyu. Such a situation recalls - especially for the Luo - the frustrations of the 1960s and 1970s.

Also in openDemocracy on Kenyan politics:

Peter Kimani, "Goodbye, Mr Big Man!" (9 January 2003)

Wanyama Masinde, "Kenya's fruitless referendum" (21 November 2005)

Charles Onyango-Obbo, "Kenya after Mwai Kibaki" (20 February 2006)

Peter Kimani, "Kenya's voices of discontent" (26 March 2007)

Peter Kimani, "A past of power more than tribe in Kenya's turmoil" (2 January 2008)

Michael Holman, "Kenya: chaos and responsibility" (3 January 2008)The vote itself was primarily anti-establishment rather than crudely anti-Kikuyu, however: only six members of the cabinet survived the landslide, and many of the victims - including vice-president Moody Awori, planning minister Henry Obwocha, roads minister Simeon Nyachae, and tourism minister Moses Dzoro - were not Kikuyu. Even the few Luo or other westerners who were also PNU members lost their seats. Several Moi administration survivors - such as former minister Nicholas Biwott or Moi's own son Gideon Moi - were also axed, often by nearly unknown candidates who took their seats with ease. This is one reason why the minority parties won so many seats: incumbency was a distinct liability and voters appeared ready to elect anybody who seemed ready to promote change.

It is when that trend towards long-awaited change appeared about to be blocked once more by the man who had already betrayed it after 2002 that violence exploded. The configuration of two relationships - Luo-Kikuyu, and Kikuyu with power - meant in the circumstances that it could not but be anti-Kikuyu. At the time of writing there have been at least 600 "official" deaths (as registered in hospitals and by other reliable sources); but this total is almost certainly an underestimate, especially if information from all the isolated rural areas where old scores are being settled were available.

While Luo have slaughtered Kikuyu settlers in their midst in the west, Mungiki thugs have rallied to the tribe and have been busy killing Luo in the Nairobi slums, hoping to ingratiate themselves with the big bosses of Kiambu, Nyeri and Murang'a. There are already as many as 250,000 internally-displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees (into Uganda). Factories are idle, many roads are closed, and food and humanitarian crises loom. In Uganda, Rwanda and the eastern DR Congo, the interruption of fuel supplies coming from Mombasa is threatening transport. Even Tanzania is beginning to feel the economic aftershocks of the disturbances. By a conservative estimate, the Kenyan economy is losing $30 million a day and the loss for the whole region - though anybody's guess - must be far greater.

On 2 January 2008, President Kibaki announced that he was "ready to have a dialogue with the concerned parties". This was a good start but, once more, the 76-year-old president seemed to be a prisoner of his past (and, perhaps, of his entourage). He stalled Desmond Tutu on the bishop's arrival from South Africa in the effort to mediate (in contrast to Raila Odinga, who had immediately met Tutu); and when on 3 January attorney-general Amos Wako announced the creation of three committees designed to find a solution to the crisis (on peace and reconciliation, on the media aspects of the situation and on legal affairs), they were packed with burned-out politicians like Simeon Nyachae, Njenga Karume or George Saitoti, most of whom had just lost their seats in the election.

On 7 January, it is reported that Kibaki has invited Ghana's president, John Kufuor, to re-engage in the mediation effort that was proposed as the violence first escalated; and that he has offered to create a government of national unity with the opposition which (an official statement says) "would not only unite Kenyans but would also help in the healing and reconciliation process".

It is an artful departure from the boast of his precipitous acceptance speech of 30 December, when President Kibaki had declared: "Fellow Kenyans, you have given us a vote of confidence in the values and principles...that we began five years ago. You have chosen the leaders you wish to serve you during the next five years".

In the circumstances, the claim was neither truthful nor realistic. It is unclear whether Mwai Kibaki's latest manoeuvres represent a genuine shift of position or a tactical adjustment to desperate conditions. In any case, the creation of a government of national unity is now the sole, albeit painful compromise available if Kenya's violence is to be contained and some sort of progress beyond this nightmare made. After that, a just and truthful reckoning with what has happened in Kenya must be attempted.

Average rating

(6 votes)