Kenya Crisis Undermine Africa Democracy?
TaoJi Student ID:s07666
Botany School
Research Paper Supervisor: Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzu University of China
2007-2008 Academic Year
Abstract
The paper analyzes the issues of Kenya crisis and democracy in Africa.
The opposition Orange Democratic Movement, led by Raila Odinga, insists that the December 27 presidential election was rigged in favor of the president, Mwai Kibaki. The subsequent violence has brought to the surface long-held tensions over land, the economy and political power, and plunged Kenya into its biggest crisis since independence.
Although a lot of hopes and expectations are invested in the current process of democratic change and its capacity to engineer peace, however, the possible outcome of the process remains uncertain and open to conjecture. If this disputation can’t be solved correctly, Africa democracy may be undermined. But stability is still the prerequisite for development.
Keywords: Kenya crisis, Africa democracy, colonial rule, ethnic conflicts
Kenya lies astride the equator on the eastern coast of Africa. Kenya is bordered in the north by Sudan and Ethiopia, in the east by Somalia, on the southeast by the Indian Ocean, on the southwest by Tanzania and to the west by Lake Victoria and Uganda.
Kenya is notable for its' geographical variety. The low-lying, fertile coastal region, fringed with coral reefs and islands, is back by a gradually rising coastal plain, a dry region covered with savanna and thorn bush.
At an altitude of about 1,524 m and 300 miles inland, the plain gives way in the southwest to a high plateau, rising in parts to 3,048 m, in which about 85% of the population and the majority of economic enterprise are concentrated (Kenya introduction, 1997). The northern section of Kenya, forming three-fifths of the whole territory, is arid and of semi-desert character, as is the bulk of the southeastern quarter. In the high plateau area, known as the Kenya Highlands, there lie Mt. Kenya (5,200 m), Mt Elgon (4,322m) and the Aberdare Ranger (rising to over 3,963 m) [ibid]. The plateau is bisected from north to south by the Rift Valley, part of the great geological fracture that can be traced from Syria through the Red Sea and East Africa to Mozambique. In the north of Kenya, the valley is broad and shallow, embracing Lake Turkana (160 miles long), while further south it narrows and deepens and is walled by escarpments 610 to 930 mtr high [ibid]. West of the Rift Valley, the plateau descends to the plains that border Lake Victoria. The principal rivers are the Tana and the Athi, flowing southeast to the Indian Ocean, the Ewaso Ngiro flowing northeast to the swamps of the Lorian Plain, and the Nzoia, Yala and Gori, which drain eastward into Lake Victoria. Low plains rise to central highlands, divided by the Great African Rift Valley [ibid].
In 1991, President Daniel arap Moi agreed to move to multi-party politics, eight years after his
government had amended the constitution to legalize one-party rule. The move to a multi-party state came after two years of an anti-government political campaign by opposition groups and persistent pressure by donor governments.
In 1992, Kenyans voted in record numbers in the country's first multi-party election in almost 26 years. President Moi defeated opposition candidates by a small margin. His party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), won a majority in the 210-seat parliament, despite the defeat of several senior KANU officials by opposition candidates.
In 1997, Kenya held its second multi-party elections, at the height of tensions between the opposition and the ruling party. President Moi was re-elected with 40 percent of the votes cast, while his nearest rival, Mwai Kibaki, won 31 percent (Mr. PAYNE, 2008).
In 2002, the opposition succeeded in forming and holding together a coalition, known as NARC (National Rainbow Coalition), that ousted KANU from power by wide margins. NARC won 132 seats in parliament, compared with KANU's 67, while Kibaki defeated Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Jomo Kenyatta, for the presidency with a 62 percent majority (ibid).
The 2002 had a positive impact in Kenya as well as in Africa generally. The smooth transfer of power and the transparency in the conduct of the elections indicated that democracy can flourish in Africa. The power of incumbency and the entrenched clout of a ruling party did not stop an opposition victory in Kenya.
Kenya has been a valuable U.S. ally since independence, providing the United States with access to its military facilities and political support in the United Nations. Washington once considered Kenya a model developing country with shared democratic values in a continent where civil wars raged and military and authoritarian governments reigned.
Kenya has been an important ally in the war against terrorism, especially since the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Kenya has been one of the major recipients of U.S. foreign assistance in Sub-Saharan Africa for decades, and is an important trading partner with the United States.
On December 27, 2007, the citizens of Kenya went peacefully to the polls to elect a new parliament and a new President and signaled their commitment to democracy by turning out in large numbers and, in some instances, waiting in long lines to vote.
On December 29, 2007, the opposition presidential candidate, Raila Odinga, was reportedly over 300,000 votes ahead of the incumbent with 90 percent of the precincts reporting (ibid).
On December 30, 2007, the head of the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) declared that Mwai Kibaki won the presidential election by 197,000 votes (ibid).
Mr. Kibaki was sworn in as President within an hour of the announcement of the election results, despite serious concerns raised about the legitimacy of the election results by domestic and international observers (ibid).
The lack of transparency in vote tallying, serious irregularities reported by election observers, the implausibility of the margin of victory, and the swearing in of the Party of National Unity presidential candidate with undue haste, all serve to undermine the credibility of the presidential election results (ibid).
The Government of Kenya imposed a ban on live media that day, and shortly after the election results were announced, in contravention of Kenyan law, the Government also announced a blanket ban on public assembly and gave police the authority to use lethal force (ibid).
On January 1, 2008, four commissioners on the ECK issued a statement which called into question the election results announced by the Commission and for a judicial review; the head of the European Union Election Observation Mission stated that `Lack of transparency as well as a number of verified irregularities ... cast doubt on the accuracy of the results of the presidential election as announced by the ECK' and called for an international audit of the results (ibid).
Observers from the East African Community have called for an investigation into irregularities during the tallying process and for those responsible for such irregularities to be held accountable.
The subsequent violence, which has seen more than 800 people killed in ethnic attacks and protesters' clashes with police, has brought to the surface long-held tensions over land, the economy and political power, and plunged Kenya into its biggest crisis since independence (ibid).
The instability in Kenya is not rooted in tribal violence but in a struggle for democracy and concerns that the gains of the past decade may be lost. The Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs has stated that `serious flaws in the vote tallying process damaged the credibility of the process' and that the United States should not conduct business as usual' in Kenya, and the political instability in Kenya could have serious political, economic, and security implications for the entire region (Tom Woods, 2008).
1. How the Seeds of Political Chaos Were Sown
Kenya’s journey into its political quagmire points to the need for sustained outside intervention throughout the life of the current compromise agreement. Kenya’s elections in 1992 and 1997 alerted the international community to the ethnic tinderbox that the country had become under President Daniel arap Moi’s overlong stay in power. Ethnic violence reared its head, and those watching closely saw the potential for downward spiral in a country where catastrophe could dwarf Rwanda’s genocide. Democracy remained a distant dream as the opposition was divided and the country’s very stability became the foremost priority for the international community.
The National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), created after President Moi announced that he would not contest the 2002 elections, opened a whole new set of possibilities for Kenya’s opposition. NARC’s careful balancing of presidential candidate Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu and Raila Odinga’s Luo tribes helped to avert the ethnic violence that had disturbed the previous two elections. The result was a solid majority for NARC and President Kibaki. Odinga was a key figure in that post-Moi coalition, and it was clear to many that Kibaki and Odinga had reached an agreement for future power-sharing.
It didn’t take long for the growing rivalry between Kibaki and Odinga to escalate. Kibaki’s faltering health also opened the door for factional stalwarts to begin driving a wedge between the two. By 2003, Odinga had pulled out of the coalition when it became apparent that Kibaki would not follow the agreed-upon prescription [...]
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