Kenya's comeuppance
The 27 December Kenyan elections and smooth transfer of power to the opposition marked another milestone on the road to African democratisation, writes Gamal Nkrumah
This is a pivotal moment for Kenya, and the entire African continent. After a gruelling election campaign in which the tribal factor and political violence played no part, the Kenyan opposition trounced the government at presidential and parliamentary polls. An unprecedented event for Kenya, but quite commonplace these days in West, East and Southern Africa.
The landslide triumph of seasoned Kenyan politician and opposition leader Mwai Kibaki at the country's 27 December presidential polls came as no big surprise. It merely underscored the inevitable change Kenyans longed for. Opposition candidates swept the parliamentary elections as well. Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi outgoing Kenyan president and national chairman of Kenya's ruling party for 39 years, Kenya African National Union (KANU), failed to convince the Kenyan electorate to vote for his chosen successor Uhuru Kenyatta.
Uhuru Kenyatta conceded defeat to his rival Mwai Kibaki, leader of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) -- a newly- launched grouping of diverse, often rival, political parties united in their determination to oust the Moi administration from office.
"History is in the making," trumpeted Kenya's East African Standard. Kibaki is unquestionably the biggest fish swilling about in the big punch bowl of Kenyan politics. Kibaki came to power on the back of overwhelming public discontent with the Moi administration.
Kenya's economy is still the largest and most dynamic in East Africa. But, the country's 30 million people are among the world's poorest. In the past two decades the number of Kenyans living below the poverty line has increased from 40 to 55 per cent of the population. Western donors have cut back on aid in protest at systemic graft and alleged gross human rights violation under the Moi administration.
"I take over in a country ravaged by years of misrule and ineptitude," Kibaki said at his swearing-in ceremony attended by regional heads of state including Presidents Benjamin Mkapa, Yoweri Museveni and Levi Mwanawasa of Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia respectively. Also present were South African First Lady Zanele Mbeki and former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda who was in Kenya as an African Union election observer.
"The people have put their broken dreams in Kibaki's pocket," explained Kenya's Daily Nation. A deteriorating economic situation and a deep yearning for political freedom determined the elections results. "In their simple faith in [Kibaki] lies a responsibility of the scariest proportions," the paper said.
"The strong and common will of the people today has brought about a change for which we have toiled long days and nights," senior NARC politician Ralia Odinga, son of socialist opposition leader Oginga Odinga, told jubilating crowds after Kenyatta conceded defeat.
Kenyans said no to Uhuru Kenyatta. Uhuru, freedom or independence in Kiswahili -- Kenya's national language -- is the son of the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president and founding father. Kenyans rejected Uhuru not so much because of the sins of his father, but more as a snub to Moi, Jomo Kenyatta's hand-picked successor. Moi was only returning the favour when he chose Uhuru, the son of his political mentor, as his successor. Kenyatta the father's standing in the collective memory of Kenyans remains largely intact and unblemished. But, there is a deep suspicion among Kenyans that the rampant corruption that has come to characterise their country started with the Kenyatta administration. Kibaki quit the KANU in December 1991 to form the Democratic Party and later this year joined other anti- Moi opposition forces in the NARC.
What Kenyans seem to be deliberately overlooking is that Kibaki, too, is a child of the Kenyatta era. A former finance minister, and at one point Kibaki was Moi's vice president and heir apparent, Kibaki has for long been an integral part of Kenya's political establishment.
There is a worrying trend in Africa today, which favours the instalment of wealthy tycoons and politically-keen businessmen as presidents. President Marc Ravalomanana of Madagascar is one such businessman-turned- president, Ghanaian President John Kuffor is another. Kibaki is soon to be inaugurated one too. The African electorate don't seem to be overtly worried by the trend, though. Reasoning perhaps that if rich magnates run the country they will not be so tempted to enrich themselves quickly as they are already wealthy. Better to have a moneyed president than to have one who will make his fortune through the presidency.
Gender issues, too played a part in the Kenyan elections. Kenyan politics are traditionally overwhelmingly dominated by men. Moi's wife hardly ever appeared in public. In sharp contrast, Kibaki's wife Lucy Muthoni was by her husband's side campaigning vigourously in the run-up to the presidential polls. Likewise, Professor Margaret Wangari Maathai, the internationally acclaimed Kenyan feminist and environmentalist, won a seat, Tetu, on an NARC ticket.
It was against a backdrop of civil unrest and popular discontent that ministers began to desert Moi. Faced with growing protests from the restive populace, the Moi administration backed off. Moi finally got the message and stepped down compliantly and in accordance with the country's constitution. Behind this uncharacteristic response was a difficult balance of interests. On the one hand, leftists and ethnic Luo forces rally around Raila Odinga. On the other, the Kikuyu -- Kenya's largest ethnic group to which both Kibaki and Kenyatta belong -- might not want to see a Luo in power, if the 71 year-old Kibaki retires early. He was badly wounded and shaken by a recent car accident which nearly cost him his life. The determined Kibaki continued touring the country during the election campaign in a wheel-chair which might have gained him the additional sympathy vote.
In the past the Moi administration got by because of Kenya's relative economic competence in contrast with its war-torn and impoverished neighbours. But in reality it was the feebleness of the Kenyan opposition that was the primary cause of Moi's long stay in power. Few Kenyans were prepared to turn against a government that had delivered a stable, fairly successful economy based on tourism and the export of exotic agricultural produce and horticultural products to European markets. With the spate of terrorist attacks that hit the country the tourists stayed away. First, the bombing of the United States embassy in Nairobi in 1998 and then the car bomb aimed at Israeli holiday- makers in the Israeli-owned Indian Ocean resort Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya's second largest city and chief port.
With scant evidence of the traditional African "Big Man" syndrome surfacing during Kibaki's inauguration ceremony which took place in Uhuru (Freedom) Park in Nairobi, Moi sat submissively, resigned to his fate. He stepped down as Kenyan president after delivering his shortest speech ever -- a five- minute farewell address in which he snubbed Western powers, whom he sees as the main reason for his political demise. The election results, he scowled, proved that "Africa could manage its own destiny." Soon after the ceremony, Moi flew by helicopter to his home in Kabarak in the scenic Kenyan Rift Valley near the city of Nakuru.
"The era of road-side decisions and declarations is gone," Kibaki said at his swearing-in ceremony. He promised to get rid of political patronage and rampant corruption. "We will restore the authority of parliament and the independence of the judiciary," Kibaki pledged.
Kibaki, a self-confessed carnivore and a Scorpio, is a charismatic leader. His favourite foods are milk and meat -- he was denied the latter at his austere Christian missionary Nyeri Boys School. But the days of poverty and lack are a distant memory for Kibaki today. He lives with his wife in an opulent villa in the exclusive Muthiaga suburb of Nairobi. He is a member of several exclusive sporting clubs including the Muthiaga Golf Club, the Muthaiga Country Club and the Karen Country Club. Kibaki might be a man of the people, but he is most certainly also a proud member of the upper echelons of the Kenyan elite.
Kibaki is a self-made man. He enrolled at Makarere University, Uganda, in 1951. At Makarere he served as chairman of the Kenya Students Association. His first job was in Shell. The ambitious young Kibaki was soon offered a Commonwealth fellowship to do post-graduate studies in Britain. He grabbed the opportunity, even though he was under suspicion by the British colonial authorities back at home in Kenya. Kibaki was speedily issued with a British passport upon arrival in Britain. He was in London as a post- graduate student when he heard that his brother Kinyua, an anti-European settler Mau Mau freedom fighter, was killed at the hands of the British colonial authorities.
Still, Kibaki is a self-confessed Anglophile. He bears no grudges against the British. "I still have kept that [British] passport as a souvenir. It reminds me of the folly of the colonial administration in Kenya," Kibaki jokes about the episode today.
The land question still dogs Kenyans. If the problem of European settler colonialism has been resolved, racial tensions still remain in a country that has small, but economically dominant European, Arab and Indian minorities. All have vested interests in the economic powerhouse of East Africa.
Thanks to the country's founding father Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya never toyed with the half-baked socialism of neighbouring Tanzania under Julius Nyerere, termed Ujamaa or African Socialism. Kenyans have had enough of a government that has been branded as notoriously corrupt. Well-heeled Kenyans are fed up with the astronomically high crime rate in big cities, especially the capital Nairobi. Gross income inequalities, widespread poverty and land shortages created an economic crisis of dangerous proportions. To the West's chagrin, successive Moi administrations battled against International Monetary Fund prescriptions. Against this grim background came a wave of disastrous terrorist strikes and scares.
Tourism is Kenya's largest industry. And, suspected militant Islamist terrorists had missiles aimed at an Israeli passenger jet as it took off from Mombasa for Israel. Belatedly, the Kenyan authorities have half- heatedly clamped down on suspected terrorists. But the Kenyan authorities are loathe to antagonise the large, vociferous and economically dynamic Muslim minority of 20 per cent of the population. Many have likened the recent anti-terrorist measures by the Kenyan authorities as merely locking the stable door after the horses had bolted.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 2 - 8 January 2003 (Issue No. 619)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/619/in4.htm