Kenyan Election 2002: The End of Machiavellian Politics?

Mohamed Bakari*

On the 27th of December, 2002, Kenyans went to the polls to elect a 210 member National

Assembly.This was Kenya’s 8th election in the last 40 years as an independent state.For all

these years , the government was dominated by the ruling party, Kenya African National

Union (KANU). Infact through a series of strategies, KANU had managed to perpetuate itself

in power as a de facto, and later, a de jure , one party state.With the fall of the Soviet Union

in 1990, politics and states in much of the world was transformed in many ways.In Kenya,

the early nineties ushered in a serious opposition movement , the Forum for the Restoration

of Democracy, which was an alliance of disgruntled politicians, young political idealists and

other groups that were yearning for change from the autocratic politics of Daniel Toroitich

Arap Moi and the power elite.The most prominent among these was the veteran politician

and one time Kenyan Vice President and with populist tendencies, Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga

Odinga.The mass movement, which by and large played by the rules, wanted to dismantle the

notorious Section 2 (A) of the Constitution of Kenya which barred the formation of other

political parties.But the winds of change in the early nineties were so violent and irreversable

that the incumbent government had to bow down to increasing internal pressure from its

opponents, and external pressure from international donar agencies , powerful foreign

governments and human rights organizations like the Amnesty International and Human

Rights Watch. All these pressures did finally pay off when KANU revoked the relevant

clause in the constitution to pave the way for the politics of multipartism.If it were not for the

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constant wranggling within the opposition ranks, KANU could easily have been dislodged

from its dominant position in 1992.But it was not to be.The opposition parties were

fragmented, largely thanks to the strategy of KANU throwing spanners in the opposition

works and the buying off of potential politicians who posed a threat to KANU stranglehold

on power.As it turned out, KANU won the 1992 election through fair and foul means and

the opposition lost the chance of writing a new chapter in Kenyan politics.Because KANU

had the resources and the infrastructure to organize themselves, they were able to repeat their

success in the sunsequent election in 1997, though with a considerably reduced majority in

Parliament.

From 1992 Kenyans, like the Americans, go to the polls on a predetermined date of

27th of December of the election year.This has very little to do with the emulation of

American democratic culture.It had everything to do with the decidedly Machiavellian

nature of Kenyan politics , where situations were manipulated to derive the maximum

advantage to those in power.By the early 1990s KANU was seen more as a tool of self-

enrichment and self-aggrandizement by both the party politicians and the general public at

large.It had icreasingly lost its credibility as development oriented and it had degenerated into

the classic Fanonist conception of post – independence African political parties, which start

off well as nationalistic, anti-colonial and well- intentioned, until the national bourgeoisie

discover the usefulness of the party as a conduit to personal wealth , self-preservation and

absolute power.KANU, in its forty years in power vindicated Fanon by living up to all the

fears that he had for the future of political parties in Africa.

A number of well connected politicians and party functionaries made a fortune for

themselves , some losing it out of their own recklessness, like the Kamba politician, Paul

Ngei, who had the dubious distinction of being the only former political detainee who served

time in detention with the founding father of the Kenyan nation, Jomo Kenyatta , after the

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infamous Kapenguria trials, to be declared bankrupt and thus ineligible to contest any public

office.He had increasingly been alienated by those who jossled for power and who saw in

him as a likely rival, and thus driven out of KANU, to form an unsuccessful ethnically based

party.Other more astute politicians played the game as they were expected to and became

immensely rich.

In the first 15 years a number of charismatic politicians lost their lives through

political assassinations or perceived assassination.The most prominent among these were Pio

Gama Pinto, Thomas Joseph Mboya1 and Josiah Mwangi Kariuki 2

Dr.Robert Ouko 3 and later, Bishop Muge. Mboya, the most charismatic politician that Kenya

has ever had, was assassinated in July, 1969 , in a busy Nairobi street in broad day light;

Kariuki, affectionately known as “J M,” was brutally murdered and abondoned a few

kilometers outside Nairobi, in the Ngong forest.His body was found on 5th March,

1975.Ronald Ngala died in a mysterious accident on a Christmas day. Robert Ouko was

burned beyond recognition at Got Alila, virtually his own backyard, in 1990.These three

politicians commanded country wide popularity and were national figures who transcended

the narrow and parochial confines of their ethnic constituencies.From early on, Kenyan

politics, or to be more precise, KANU politics , had all the characteristics of that brand of

politics that is described by the epithet of Machiavellian: politicians who came in the way of

particular interests were forced into line through pursuasion, bribing, intimidation and

harassment, and if all those did not work, then resort to physical elimination was not ruled

out.

Kenyan politics was for a long time all about money. He who had the money

controlled the politics, and Moi used money , or access to money in the form of fat

government contracts, high governmental positions that were virtually sinecures, and in the

last decade, access to land.The months leading to the first multiparty elections in 1992 was

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the high point in the abuse of public land. Government land became KANU’s new cash

cow.It was a short-cut to instant wealth and a source of campaign cash.

The Last of the Autocrats : Moi and the Politics of Conformism

When President Moi succeeded Jomo Kenyatta as the next President of Kenya in

1978, Kenyatta had already ensured that the Kikuyu, and in particular the Kiambu Kikuyu,

dominated the governmental bureaucracy in the Civil Service, the banking system, the

parastatals and other corporations that the government had a stake in , and also key jobs at the

University of Nairobi. Also, a number of settlements were set up to resettle the landless

Kikuyu from their densely populated ares in the Central Province to the Coast and the Rift

Valley Provinces.In short, the Kikuyu dominated the national economy.The underestimated

Arap Moi, on accession, made the dismantling of the Kikuyu power base the main plank of

his domestic policy.The Kikuyu were until then, statistically the most numerous tribe in the

country, followed by the Luo.The Luo tended to be mostly professionals but did not have a

grip on the economy.He had less to fear from them than he did from the Kikuyu.In his

relentless pursuit of the Kikuyu Moi enlisted the support of the minority tribes to virtually

gang up against the Kikuyu.By using the time honored technique of divide and rule he was

able to perpetuate himself in power for the next twenty four years.

Moi had a big axe to grind with the Kikuyu, at least the Kikuyu elite.When Kenyatta

suffered an initial heart attack and recovered, those Kikuyu politicians close to Kenyatta got

a wake up call to find one of their own to take over the Presidency after Kenyatta was gone,

and who was then already in his eighties,.The main stumbling block was the constitution

which stipulated that on the death of a President, the Vice President automatically assumed

power for ninety days until the elections are called.And the Kiambu politicians headed by

Mbiyu Koinange could not countenance this situation of a non-Kikuyu assuming the

presidency.An anti-Moi campaign was orchestrated to deny him his constitutional right and a

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‘Change the Constitution’ movement was set in full gear.But other self-interested Kikuyus

like the former Attorney-General and an incurable anglophile Charles Njonjo had an agenda

different from their other clansmen.He joined forces with the non-Kiambu faction of the

Kikuyu and other Kenyan minorities who saw a window of opportunity in supporting a

minority leader and challenging Kikuyu dominance.Moi won the day, appointed Mwai

Kibaki the Vice President, presumably on Njonjo’s advice.It was expected that he would not

last for very long.As it turned out, he was the most underestimated politician in the short

Kenyan political history.The 1982 attempted Coup d’etat was to have far reaching

repercussions on Moi’s presidency.

President Moi underwent a metamorphosis from a timid politician who lacked

confidence to a skillful welder of autocratic power.It was this 1982 abortive attempted coup

led by John Ochuka, a low ranking airforce officer, that spurred Moi to reinvent himself as a

confident politician who was his own man.The fateful coup was quickly put down by a loyal

Somali Muslim soldier, General Mahmoud Mohammed .The suppression of the coup

restored a measure of confidence in Moi and he gradually consolidated his power and became

a fully-fledged autocrat who totally dominated the political scene, by the use of public office

to reward loyal party members or their supporters, who would indirectly support Moi. Merit

had no place in this new cronyism and client politics.Putative loyalty was the sole criterion

for selection and appointment to often lucrative public office.The result was the paradoxical

situation where some barely literate cronies were appointed to ministrial positions to the

exclusion of the more competent, better educated and qualified individuals who did not meet

his own criteria.He was able to hide behind the alabi of ethnic and regional representation

and balance.In reality he was comfortable with and constantly in search of yes-men, the type

that Lenin described as “useful idiots”. He also created a covey of bell-wethers like Shariff

Nassir Taib, Kariuki Chotara and Mulu Mutisya.Through constant reshuffles, in the cabinet,

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the civil service, the diplomatic service, and government corporations he could appoint at will

whom he chose and fired whoever failed to toe the line or fell out of favor. And in the bargain

kept everyone guessing who would be next.The promotion and demotion announcements

were made over the radio, and often at the lunch hour news bulletins from the State

controlled Kenya Bradcasting Corporation. Most appointees or the demotees were notified by

their friends or relatives.But the jewel in the crown was the Priventive Detention Act, which

empowered him to detain anyone arbitrarily for long periods of time, and only release them at

his own pleasure.This particular law was a remnant of the colonial legacy which in Britain

was only resorted to in times of war.In Kenya it was an instrument to be welded against

political dissents.Among those who became victims of this arbitrariness were politicians ,

intellectuals, rare bureucrats and academics.These included Oginga Odinga, a former Vice

President, and his son, Raila Odinga, the famous Kenyan novelist and academic Ngugi Wa

Thiong’o4 , Dr. Willy Mutunga, Gibson Kurian Kamau, Dr. George Katama Mkangi, Koigi

Wa Wamwere, Dr.Alamin M.Mazrui and Kenneth Matiba. These excessive powers, which

were aminable to abuse , were enshrined in the constitution, and were a throwback to the

constitutional arrangements that were put in place when Kenyatta came to power in the wake

of nationalist euphoria.The main architect of this constitution was none other than the

distinguished African-American jurist and Supreme Court judge, Thurgood Marshall.The

constitution, like Swiss cheese, had enough loopholes to enable the incumbent to exhibit what

Ali Mazrui famously described as the “ monarchical tendencies in African political culture.”

Important executive orders were made in an impromtu manner in political rallies or at the

roadside.A swahili slogan, “fuata nyayo”- follow in the footsteps- became the rallying cry of

the sychophant politicians to force everybody to sing the tune of conformism. Nyayoism was

elevated to a “philosophy”, only that there was no one to explain exactly what constituted this

“philosophy”, if it was a philosophy at all. It is interesting that the U.S. based Kenyan

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political scientist Ali Mazrui had earlier anticipated, in his book The Political Sociology of

the English Language in Africa that in Africa, slogans are too readily elevated to

“philosophies.”

When the government was confronted by new demands for new standards of human

rights observance , harassment degenerated to naked and unbriddled thuggery where targeted

politicians’ property was vandalized , just to send home the message that the more things

changed the more they remained the same. It was this context that gave birth to the Forum for

the Restoration of Democracy ( FORD ), a loose coalition of all aggrieved and disgruntled

individuals who felt that change was needed.Young, better educated and articulate politicians

who saw no rooms for themselves in the political space in the context of African veneration

for age before education and competence started to pose considerable challenge to the old

order personified by Moi.This period of active oppositional politics gave rise to new political

faces like those of Paul Muite, Professor Anyang’ Nyon’go, Richard Leakey, Raila Odinga,

Khalid Balala, among many others, who refused to play by Moi’s rules;they had their own

game plan.These were all members of a different generation from that of Moi and his

cronies.The average age of the younger generation was forty.This batch of politicians was

christened by the local press as “ the Young Turks.”Among this new breed of politicians

Raila Odinga emerged the most astute and capable and with a clear and formidable ethic

following.

The Rise and Rise of Raila Odinga and the Fall of Daniel Arap Moi

Raila Odinga, a relatively young mechanical engineer trained in what was then East

Germany came into politics more in default than by design.A scion of a distinguished

political family, the son of one of the most famous Kenyan politicians with international

reputation as a socialist of some sort, Raila got involved in politics more out of spite than a

real love of politics.For one thing , he was living under the charismatic shadow of his

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towering father who was still active in politics until he died , in 1995, in his eighties.Despite

his age, he was seen by many as an embodiment of all that was moral in Kenyan politics.In a

word he was an idealist of the first rank. He was above all considered the most persecuted

politician in post-independence Kenya having been detained for long periods by both

Kenyatta and Moi.Over the years he had assembled young Luo intellectual admirers whom he

engaged and sought advice from .Among these were Dr. Elisha Stephen Atieno-Odhiambo,

then a professor of History at the University of Nairobi, and Dr. Anyang’ Nyong’o,

University of Chicago trained political scientist teaching at Nairobi also.It was these

contemporaries of his that had worked with his father that Raila Odinga relied upon in

working a strategy to capture power.Odinga was the Chairman of the original FORD party,

until new alliances were formed and the party broke into two wings, FORD – KENYA and

FORD- ASILI.The party fragmanted further into FORD-PEOPLE, led by Mr. Kenneth

Matiba, who had fallen out with Moi, and became the focus of Kikuyu support and

mobilization.On the death of his father in 1994 Raila Odinga was nominated to lead the

party.Dr. Atieno-Odhiambo became a close confidante of Raila , just as he had earlier been to

his father.Soon after the abortive coup of 1982 Atieno-Odhiambo was briefly detained for

interrogation.When he was released he found his way to the United States, via Oxford, where

he still teaches at Rice University in Texas.He is one of Raila’s chief political

strategists.Early on the strategy was to capture power in the long - run, and in the short-term

to forge alliances with other ethnic groups and to cultivate an image of a national rather than

an ethnic politician5 . He was already on his way towards being a politician of national

stature by virtue of the fact that he chose an urban constituency, Nairobi , to stand for

parliamentary elections.His brother, an Oginga Odinga look-alike, stood in Bondo, their

father’s constituency when he was not in detention.Raila is the most popular Luo politician

among his own ethnic group and among the Kenyan lumpen-prolitariat, as the new Mr.

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Clean of Kenyan politics and the champion of the dispossessed.He was the most feared by

Moi among the Kenyan politicians because of his ability to stirr up his supporters to wreck

havoc, when necessary.In his jossling for power he has practiced real politik , by forming

alliances with non-Luos from all areas of the republic.For example he supported Prof. Rashid

Mohamed Mzee, a Muslim politician from the Coast, as the deputy Chairman of his new

party, Nationl Development Party of Kenya .When the turn came to select a Nominated

member of parliament he shrewedly suggested a Muslim Digo woman whose father was a

long time Odinga supporter from the Kenya People’s Union days, formed after Odinga was

provoked into leaving KANU after the infamous Limuru Conference of 1966, where Tom

Mboya was especially instrumental in hounding him out of the party and out of the Vice –

Presidency of Kenya.While all along Mboya was recognized as the leading Luo politician, he

was suddenly now dubbed as an Abasuba, meaning a nilotized Bantu , ethnically closer to

the other Bantu groups but culturally Luo. Infact the majority of the Suba had no knowledge

of Kisuba but for all practical purposes spoke Dholuo, the language of the Luo

people 6 .During the Moi era the Suba identity was encouraged to alienate the larger Luo tribal

group.Raila was cognizant of all these developments and seemed to learn from the mistakes

of his father.This is where he probably differs from his father: Odinga senior was known for

his impulsiveness, he was short temperd, whereas Raila is more circumspect.He realises the

necessity of bidding one’s time in politics, for, as the saying goes, one week is very long in

politics.And this is precisely what happened with Odinga junior.

Come the General Elections 2002, a series of unexpected events unfolded that

precipitated in unprecedented alliances.Opposition alliance as a united front had been eluding

the opposition parties since the early 1990s.The major political parties in the opposition such

as Ford-Kenya, Ford- People, Democratic Party , Safina , Social Democratic Party and others

could never agree to field one Presidential condidate to oppose Daniel Arap Moi, partly , as

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we noted, throuh the hiddden hand of KANU.Ironically it was Moi who sealed the fate of

KANU when he chose a relative greenhorn , Uhuru Kenyatta as his annoited successor, an

outsider within the KANU inner circle and the so called kitchen cabinet, composed of those

closest to the president. Moi’s choice, generally believed by many to have been determined

more by personal rather than national interests infuriated and thus alienated a significant

portion of ambitious KANU loyalists who felt snubbed by the choice of this virtually

apolitical nominee from a now less regarded Kenyatta family.This trump card of Moi’s did

not work and had the unexpected effect of haemorrahging memebership of KANU into the

lap of the opposition parties.The opposition was already trying to get its act together, as they

always tried to around the election times, by forming the National Allaince of Kenya, as an

ambrella party to take into its fold all the dissenting voices.There was little in the form of an

agenda that was common to these opposition parties; they were only united in their

determination to see Moi removed from power.They sensed that once Moi was out of the

way, he was going to create a domino effect internally and KANU was going to fall like a

house of cards.During the fateful party convention at the Kasarani Centre, Moi played

Machiavelli and through duplicity ensured that George Saitoti, the incumbent Vice-

President, was removed out of the way and all the other ambitious potential contenders were

properly reduced to size.

But this was a new KANU which had come into being through the dissolution of

Raila Odinga’s party, NDP, which months before had merged with KANU and had been

sufficiently assimilated to give cabinet positions to Raila and a few of his former party

colleagues.Moi thought he could outflank Raila and get his wish carried through to nominate

Mr. Kenyatta, with little or no opposition.Raila, as a shrewed politician challenged Moi by

questioning the criterion on which this selection was made.Raila had an agenda of his own, to

insinaute himself into a sufficiently critical position and to eventually grab as much power as

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possible and get himself nominated as the KANU presidential candidate.. Both Moi and

Raila had hidden agendas of their own and each tried to use the other to advance their barely

concealed interests.Moi used the bugbear of kikuyu-phobia to intimidate Raila into his

alliance against the Kikuyus.Raila knew that in the new KANU he was the only charismatic

leader who could carry the day for the party and who could shrug off any Moi orders.On his

part Moi assumed that he could use Raila to get for his party the block Luo vote and thus

completely trounce the fargmanted Kikuyu.The choice of the Amherst educated Uhuru was

doomed from the start: he was a Kikuyu insider outsider.He had already been disowned by

his people by being rejected in the last parliamentary election from his own Gatundu home

constituency.He had been perceived as a Moi lackey who had been planted to sow mischief

among his tribesmen.By astute maneuvring Moi was able to gradually bring into the KANU

fold some of his bitterest Kikuyu critcs who saw him as an undisguised anti-Kikuyu.These

politicians sure were stuck in the tribal politics of the late 1960s and 1970s and who saw

Kenyan politics in Manichean terms of ‘us Kikuyus’ and ‘them non-Kikuyus.’They saw this

as an opportunity to return to the old days of Kikuyu glory.Among these politicians included

Njenga Karume, the linchpin of GEMA politics and Kihika Kimani, the Nakuru demagogue

who had personally benefitted from playing the tribal card.What escaped the notice of these

politicians of bygone days was that the younger Kikuyus, by virtue of their education,

cosmopolitanism and the bitter experience of the anti-kikuyu mood of the country after the

the death of Kenyatta and the ascension of Moi fanned by the old KADU elements in KANU,

had left behind ethnic politics in favor of forging alliances with other groups in the

country.Besides, Kenyan society had become better educated, more integrated and more

sophisticated than it was when Moi took over power and recogized the importance of the new

politics of consensus and coalition building. It was this climate that paved the way for the

possibility of realignment of opposition forces , facilitated by the mass exodus of disgruntled

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elements that, now that Moi’s exit was irrevocably inscribed in stone by the constitution, they

could afford to stage mass rebellion and lose nothing for it.Only the deferential and the

obsequious like Katana Ngala, and the indicisive and irresolute Mudavadi stayed put in the

party.They had miscalculated and misread the public mood for a new start and a clamor for a

more democratic and open society that was free of corruption , coercion and the violation of

human rights.Moi, at 78 , was already losing the will to fight and his characteristic instinctual

politics had for once failed him.He was booed in virtually every political rally that he

addressed.The massive crowds that he was used to when he came to power had degenerated

to rallies with only forced school children in attendance, or positioned opposition supporters

only there to hackle him and his entourage of civil servants and the few loyalist

politicians.The writing was already on the wall.Among the first to jump ship after the

formalization of the charade that was the KANU nomination of Uhuru Kenyatta to contest

the presidential elections on its ticket, was Raila Odinga.Because it was too late in the day to

form a new political party he revived the little known and and almost moribund Liberal

Democratic Party as a staging post into the new opposition secret weapon of National

Rainbow Coalition or NARC, as it came to be widely known.All the astute politicians who

read the national mood for change properly jumped into the Narc bandwagon. For the first

time the already ambitious opposition politicians saw this as the last chance to garb

power.The main players were Raila Odinga , Mwai Kibaki and Anyang’ Nyong’o.Those who

could not see themselves taking orders from Raila Odinga, like James Orengo or Anyang’

Nyong’o, went on their own; but the electorate was no longer sympathetic for loners.James

Orengo, one of the most iconoclastic politicians who could insult Moi at the height of his

authoritarianism put his name as a presidential candidate.He lost both the presidency and his

parliamantary seat that he had held for almost two decades.He lost his parliammentary seat

to Archbishop Ondiek, an almost forgotten ex-parliamentarian whose only thing going for

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him was that he was Raila’s choice and had his blessing.Like his father before him, Raila

just has to show up his face and point to a certain candidate for that candidate to win an

election.And like his father again, he is the uncrowned king among the Luo. Luoland is

marked as Raila’s political fiefdom.In his last political gasps and in moments of despair, just

to spite Raila, Moi described the former as a ‘tribal chief ’ rather than a leader with a

national outlook.

Anyang’ Nyongo is the most idealistic among the relatively younger generation of

Kenyan politicians. Intelligent, urbane and not much given to hero-worshiping, he could not

see himself beholden to the kind of politics that Raila practiced:accomodation tempered by a

little threat of force.On defecting to the opposition, and confident of certain victory , Raila

made it clear in public that if the opposition wins the forthcoming elections and Moi refuses

to relinquish power , he promised that his gangs were going to storm the State House, the

official residence of the Kenyan President.He was not to be taken lightly.As it turned out the

opposition alliance won the majority of the seats and Raila did not have to live up to his

threat.Anyang’ as noted ealier , was very close to Raila’s father, but he is too decent to

contemplate the use of any kind of force.He is the most democratically minded Kenyan

politician who is completely devoid of ethnocentricism of any kind.His vision, surmised from

his writings and public statements is of a democratic, multicultural and progressive

Kenya.Foremost among his ideals is a desire to see Kenya, and by extension the African

continent, governed by the principles of rule of law and primacy of national institutions,

rather than the current practice of government by charisma, where charismatic figures

subordinate national institutions to their own personal whims.As one of the main architects of

the alliance of opposition parties he felt confident to work with all those progressive forces

that wanted to see the dawn of a new era in Kenyan politics and subordinated their own

personal ambitions for the common good.In this regard he was pragmatic enough to accept

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that he might have to work with Raila who is perceived as someone who encourages hero-

worshipping among his Luo ethnic group, who sees himself as the man who should call the

shots in his tribal homeland of Nyanza, where Anyang’ Nyong himself hails from.It is also

quite obvious that Raila had a hand in the defeat of Nyong’o in the last general election after

refusing to play the ethnic card and wanting to be judged on his own merit.He had played an

important role as a voice of reason in the previous parliament as one of the parliamentarians

who contributed significantly to the debates in the House on national and international affairs.

It was therefore not surprising that although his defeat was more out of design than default,

he was sent back to parliament as a nominated member for the Social Democratic

Party.Previously a very conscientious scholar and now a hardworking politician, he is likely

to make significant contribution to the revitalization of the nation.With Kibaki at the helm,

Nyong’o has found a kindred spirit in their desire to move Kenya forward.

Winner Takes all Politics:

The National Rainbow Coalition in the apt phraseology of Andrew Harding, the BBC

correspondent who was covering the Kenyan elections, was “a coalition of genuine

reformers and opportunists.”7 The coalition was hastilly put together and expanded literally

by the minute as former KANU supporters defected from the party they saw was doomed to

certain defeat.Many of these defectors were hardcore KANU supporters who were alienated

for one reason or another, but mainly because they failed to gain their former party

nomination to stand for election.The logical thing to do was to go to the party that was

winning more supporters from the electorate.Opinion polls conducted by a number of

organizations, including that of the country’s leading mass daily, Daily Nation, had predicted

that the opposition alliance was poised to win a landslide.And they did.NARC swept the

results with 125 out of the possible 210 parliamentary seats.KANU was second with 64 seats,

FORD-People 14 , SAFINA 2, SISI KWA SISI 2, FORD-Asili 2, and SHIRIKISHO

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1.According to the constitution NARC was strengthened to 132 after nominating 7 of the 12

nominated members.This gave NARC a clear majority that entitled it to form the next

government.The nature of KANU politics was such that the laws were constantly changed to

suit particular situations, which they never anticipated might work in favor of their

opponents.A law was passed to completely rule out any possibility of a coalition

government, which seems now to be almost the norm in the contemporary world of politics

world-wide.Given KANU’s party infrastructure and access to all the resources essential to

win an election, like the control of public media, funds and the administrative and

bureaucratic structure, there was no dobt in the minds of the KANU leadership that they were

there for the long haul.One thing that they did not factor in in their calculations was the

changed public mood.They should have read the signs when the opposition political rallies

were increasingly drawing larger and larger crowds.The electorate was also predominantly

young; KANU had by now alienated all the significant sections of the Kenyan electrorate

including Muslims, women and minority ethnic groups.The only KANU stronghold left was

the North Eastern Province, inhabited by pastoralist groups like the Somali and Boran, and

the Rift Valley Province, Moi’s stronghold.The opposition had over the years managed to

make inroads into this KANU stronghold especially among the Marakwet and the Nandi, led

by such fearless politicians as Kipruto Arap Kirwa who easily sailed through in his

Cherengany constituency where he polled 16,878 votes, way ahead of his nearest contender

by 10,000 votes8 .Kirwa dared call Moi a dictator when he was still in KANU.

The entire election was given a clean bill of health by international observers and the

Electoral Commission of Kenya.While early on there were attempts at vote-buying , these

were nipped in the bud by the Anti-corruption squad and the initiative of local whistle-

blowers and watchdogs who were determined to check election rigging and election

malpractices which had been the stock-in-trade of the previous government.But the real credit

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must go to the ordinary voters who not only refused to be cowed but also refused to be

corrupted by any means.This was a real boon to the opposition who did not have any

resources to speak of.They depended entirely on the goodwill and the desire for change of the

electorate.The real shocker was the elimination of KANU die-hard Shariff Nassir Taib in the

Mvita constituency in Mombasa by the young and untried Najib Balala, the defeat of the

then just appointed Vice President Musalia Mudavadi.Other casualties included the lacklustre

Cabinet Ministers Katan Ngala, Cyrus Jirongo, Chris Obure, Francis Nyenze and Haroun

Mwau.A number of Assistant Ministers were also swept off by the new euphoria. NARC was

now set to form a government of their own choice without needing support from either other

opposition parties or KANU.The law that was rushed in parliament to give a one-party

government to the party with the majority number of parliamentarians now came to suit the

needs of the opposition for whom the law was intended in the first place to shut out the

opposition from participating in government.

The Revival of Mwai Kibaki and the End of Ethnic Politics

Mwi Kibaki won a comfortable 62.2 per cent of the vote ( 3,646,713) to Uhuru

Kenyatta’s 31.3 per cent ( 1,834,468).He had a clear mandate to lead the Kenyan nation as

the third post-independence President.This was beyond Kibaki’s wildest dreams.He had

unsuccessfully contested all the previous two elections on his own party’s platform, the

Democratic Party of Kenya.He was then perceived as a Kikuyu choice, or at least that is what

KANU hammered on. He was also written off as a spent-force and talk was then of a younger

future leader, just as had happened in Western Europe and the United States of America.

Infact Moi used the age-factor as a viable stick to beat all the aging opposition contenders for

the presidency. Only that the gambit did not work.The new review constitution had already

taken care of that:the future president was have his powers whittled down to a bare minimum

so that he will end up more as a ceremonial figure- head than an all powerful autocrat of the

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Moi mould.The opposition parties had negotiated the alliance with the spirit of the

impending constitution in mind.The new innovation in the new constitution is the creation of

the post of Prime Minister a la United Kingdom or Germany with the Bundes kanzler

welding real political power and overseen by parliament.There is also the creation of two

positions of Deputy Prime Ministers.The likelihood is that Raila Odinga will emerge as the

future Prime Minister if the alignments stand as they are to date, once the constitution is

ratified and voted on by the new chamber.At 71 Kibaki is less energetic than he was in the

prime of his life, when he served in the successive Kenya governments under Jomo Kenyatta,

and then under Moi.Although universally respected as an able former Finance Minister at the

time he held that portfolio, Kenyan economy at present is not what it was in the late sixties

and the seventies.The economy is now battered through years of mismanagement and the

plunder of the national treasury and the added burden of debt repayment to the international

lending institutions have all but left the country with just its head above water. It is badly in

need of fixing.The best person to do the job might not be Kibaki himself, but he has

sufficient goodwill from the donar community and the Bretton Woods institutions to

revitalize the economy. He at least has a pool of talented Kenyans both at home and abroad

that he can mobilize to rethink the economy.The scale of the problem is such that he cannot

wait to get the job started. Infact he already has set the wheels in motion by assembling a

team with varied talents. Most notable about the team is its representativeness, their

education, its youthfulness and its enthusiasm.

The top priority job of National Planning has gone to Anyang’ Nyong’o; that of

Finance has gone to Mwiraria, a close political ally for a long time, but whether he is up to

the job only time will tell.Kibaki has clearly reinvented himself as far as ethnic politics are

concerned.The older generation of Kenyans still remember that when he was the Finance

Minister he appointed his Kikuyu tribesmen to handle the key levers of the economy.All the

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major banks that were owned by the governement , Kenya Commercial Bank and the

National Bank of Kenya and of course the Central Bank of Kenya he manned with Kikuyus.

John Michuki headed KCB and Stanley Githunguri NBK , while Duncan Ndegwa was at the

helm at CBK.It was obvious that Kenyatta and his cronies had something to do with that state

of affairs.Only after Moi came did non-Kikuyu faces appear in those vital institutions that

made sure that the politically correct people got access to credit.Moi on his part, as he

cynically put it, was “ following in the footsteps of the great Mzee” and stuffed those

positions with his fellow Kalenjin technocrats, or at best , people who could be trusted to play

to his tune.But the decade that Kibaki had been in the cold, and the period he served under

both Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and Moi taught him the lesson of the banality of ethnic

politics.Besides, the young idealists in the new cabinet should act as a counter-balance to the

ambitious and opportunistic elements in NARC.It would be hard for the opportunists to play

by the new set of rules after spending years in the midst of landgrabbers, sinecure holders and

deal-makers whose sole purpose in politics was wheeling and dealing for themselves and

their loved one.The countervailling aspect is the culture of debate that has developed in the

former opposition , a long way from the days of fractious and sometimes violent politics in

their ranks, occasioned often by frustration.In an optimistic address to the nation President

Mwai Kibaki showed off his diverse and talented team and what their future mission is:

“The National Rainbow Coalition represents the future of Kenyan

politics.Narc is the hope of this country.Our phenomenal success in so

short a time is proof that working together in unity, we can move

Kenya forward.

Look around you , see what a gorgeous constellation of stars we are,

just look at this dazzling mosaic of people of various ethnic

backgrounds, race, creed, sex, age, experience and social status.

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 Never in the history of this country have its leaders come together as

one indivisible entity with one vision.It is the love of Kenya that has

brought us together.We chose to let go our individual differences and

personal ambitions in order to to save this nation.”9

He went on to add :

“We want to bring back the culture of due process, accountability and

transparency in public office.The era of “anything goes” is gone

forever.Government will no longer be run on the whims of

individuals.The era of roadside policy declarations is gone.My

government’s decisions will be guided by teamwork and

consultations.The authority of Parliament and the independence of the

of the Judiciary will be restored and enhanced as part of the democratic

process and culture taht we have undertaken to bring to foster.

Fellow Kenyans, I am inheriting a country which has been badly

ravaged by years of misrule and ineptitude.There has been a wise

disconnect between the people’s aspirations and the government’s

attitude toward them.I believe that government exists to serve the

peopel and not the people to serve the government...

Governrment is not supposed to be a burden on the people, it is not

supposed to intrude on every aspect of life , and it is not supposed to

mount roadblocks in every direction we turn in life.The true purpose of

government is to make laws and policies for the general good of the

people, maintain law and order , provide social services taht can

enhance the quality of life, defend the country against internal and

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 external aggression, and generally ensure that peace and stability

prevails.

Corruption will now cease to be a way of life in Kenya, and I will call

upon all those memebers of my government and public officers

accustomed to corrupt practices to know and clearly understand that

there will be no sacred cows under my government...”10

The transatlantic idiom of “disconnect” is clearly far from Mr. Kibaki’s generation.It

reflects the spell cast by the younger minds in his government and a new political mind-

set.The will is there to change the nature of society as it is currently constituted since, except

for the kleptocracy, the general mass of the people felt constrained by the non-performing

national institutions which had been neglected in pursuit of the politics of divisiveness, greed

and obsequiousness.Considered a decent and gentleman, the main saving grace is that there

are no known people around him of the same putative reputation of either Mbiyu Koinange

during the Kenyatta regime, or Kipyator Arap Biwott during the “Nyayo” era. It was widely

believed these two politicians had an inordinate influence on the two presidents behind closed

doors.They had emerged as powerful power brokers. Kibaki is a self-confident man fully

conscious of his abilities.He is likely to have advisers in the Western liberal sense, rather than

‘advisers’ in the sense commensurate with established practice in African political culture

where such figures are viewed with skepticism.The New York Times captured the nature of

government during the Moi era when they editorialized that : “The departing Mr.Moi, 78,

was from the old – school of African politicians that demand absolute loyalty from the

populace.For much of his tenure it was against the law to speak ill of him.”11 The style of

government is likely to change.

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 Conclusion

The dramatic change of government in Kenya is the culmination of a series of events

that had precipitated over the last forty years of KANU. The party had evolved from a vibrant

nationalist institution to a tool of the power-elite for self-preservation and aggrandizement.

Cracks in its edifice began to show after the collapse of the Soviet Union when the West

demanded more accountability before the landing institutions and donor countries could

make aid available, from which most African governments sustained themselves. The

emergence of a new generation of leaders with better education, sophistication, and idealism

made it possible to not only challenge the old order, but also gradually undermine its claim to

legitimacy. The fact that corruption, blatant abuse of human rights, divisive ethnic politics

had been ingrained in the Kenyan body politic did not help matters for the ruling elite. They

had almost completely lost credibility as a group, to turn things round. But ultimately, the

decision on the part of the fragmented opposition to close ranks and work toward the defeat

of KANU paid dividends in the end. The classic Machiavellian politics played by the

previous regimes seem have no place in the new dispensation. The new constitutional

arrangements are sure to stop potential autocrats in their tracks.

* Prof. Mohamed Bakari is a faculty member at Fatih University

NOTES

1
See Goldsworthy, David : Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget. Africana Publications.
1982.
2
See, Kariuki, J.M. Mau Mau Detainee. Oxford University Press, Nairobi. 1964.
3
See Anguka, Jonah: Absolute Power: The Ouko Murder Mystery. Pen Press Publishers. 2002.Also
see E.S.Atieno-Odhiambo: The Murder of Robert John Ouko, Foreign Minister of Kenya, 12-16
February, 1990.In Exceptional Spaces, Dolla Pollick ( ed.) Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina
Press (1998), Pg. 77-97.
4
See Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi: Detained.Heinemann.London.1978.

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5
Dr. E.S. Atieno-Odhiambo, personal communication, African Studies Association Annual
Coference, Seattle, Washington, 1992.He just returned from Kenya where he played a role the
election strategy, and prior to that, in the negotiations leading to the formation of NARC, e-mail
correspondence to the author dated 31/1/200.Also see E.S. Atieno-Odhiambo, Jaramogi Oginga
Odinga. East African Educational Publishers.1998.
6
For the history of the Kenyan Luo people see Ogot, B.A.: A History of the Southern Luo. East
African Publishing House, Nairobi, Kenya, 1967.Also for Luo nationalist politics see the
autobiography of Odinga, Oginga Odinga,: Not Yet Uhuru, Heinemann, London, 1968.
7
BBC-World news, 29th December, 2002.
8
Electoral Commission of Kenya results.
9
Inaugural address, New President Spells out his Vision:http://www.nationaudio.com/News/
DailyNation/Today/News/News3112200231.html
10
ibid
11
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/international/africa/31KENY.html

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