Kenya in the News (J. Stanley)

Kenya has been in the US news a lot lately. For example, today’s New York Times has an article about Thomas Cholmondeley’s flashbacks to colonial times, the second of which occurred in May when my wife and I were staying with my father-in-law in Nairobi. There was understandably a lot of emotion about the matter. Two days after the killing I attended a Harambee in the Kibera slum for women’s groups in Langata, which also served as a political rally. Politician after politician stood up to denounce Cholmondeley. But in his turn at the podium, William Ruto, a young KANU politician, turned the topic away to an issue that pleased the crowd more than the politicians, namely the endemic corruption that affects all of Kenya today. Ruto placed the blame on the shoulders of the older politicians who have run the country for decades. Kenya is not Zimbabwe before land redistribution. Chomondeley may be an heir to a large fortune, but one of the largest landowner in Kenya (if not the largest landowner) is the Kenyatta family. This brings us to the other reason Kenya has been in the news in the states, which is Barack Obama’s recent visit. Obama’s visit was a love-fest until his speech at the University of Nairobi denouncing the endemic corruption and tribalism. Obama was harshly rebuked by the Kibaki government, including by the Kenyan ambassador to the US. But from what I’ve seen of Obama’s speech, and what I know of Kenya, Obama was simply giving voice to what every Kenyan already knows. Obama seemed to hit every important note, from the corruption of the political classes (MPs in Kenya are among the highest paid in the world, with most of it untaxed), to the rampant fighting for political goods between tribes (the vast majority of Kenyans I met supported a politician who happened to be a member of their own tribe). Obama could have gone to Kenya, received his hero’s welcome, and distributed platitudes in return for good press coverage everywhere. Instead, he used his stature to give an extraordinarily controversial speech full of hard truths (The Standard, one of Kenya’s two main papers, called it “the clearest analysis in recent times of what ails Kenya.”). That took genuine character and intelligence, two qualities notoriously lacking in current American politics.

Some government officials accused Obama of being a tool of the opposition. In the current Kenyan climate, it’s not clear that would be a bad thing. The next presidential elections in Kenya are approaching in 2007. In a country that has only known real elections since 2002, things are quite fluid. But for those who do not know, here is the basic political situation. There are political parties (e.g. KANU, the Democratic Party, the Liberal Democratic Party). But it is coalitions that win elections and referendums. In 2002, President Kibaki, a Kikuyu member of the Democratic Party, won the presidency with the support of the NARC coalition, which included a number of other parties. One of the most important Kibaki supporters was Raila Odinga, an influential politician for the LDP who represents the interests of the urban poor (though everyone also represents their own tribes), and is the MP for Langata (an area of Nairobi). But Kibaki turned on other members of his coalition, and did not follow through on the promises that led to the coalition, choosing instead to favor members of his own Kikuyu tribe. In 2005, Kibaki supported a referendum to change the constitution. Raila Odinga organized a coalition against it, which came to be known as the Orange Democratic Movement, or ODM (and included prominent members of KANU such as Uhuru Kenyatta). The referendum was defeated, and ODM became the newest political coalition; NARC had effectively disintegrated. When I left Kenya in late May, there was considerable sparring between Uhuru Kenyatta (son of Jomo Kenyatta) and Raila Odinga over whether ODM was a viable future coalition for the 2007 elections. Polling over the summer indicated that Kalonzo Musyoka is one early favorite, but Raila Odinga seems to have built an appeal that reaches well beyond members of his own Luo tribe, one that is backed up by the credibility of years in prison in the 1980s for being a member of the opposition, and the selfless act of supporting Kibaki in 2002 when he himself was a logical contender. On the other hand, like Hilary Clinton, Odinga is a politican who stirs strong passions on every side.