Kenya After Moi

Joel D. Barkan

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004

Summary:  Kenya's fragile government is threatened by factionalism, economic challenges, and rising crime. To ensure Nairobi's involvement in the war on terrorism, Washington must be sensitive to its domestic needs, recognizing that fledgling democracies can be more difficult to engage than their authoritarian predecessors.

Joel D. Barkan is Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa. From 1992 to 1993, he was the U.S. Agency for International Development's governance adviser to Kenya.

Moi prevailed in Kenya's first two multiparty elections, held in 1992 and 1997, but with only a plurality of the vote. KANU won a narrow majority of seats in the National Assembly but not a majority of the ballots cast. Both elections were characterized by unprecedented levels of communal violence and foul play. Neither could be described as free and fair, despite the presence of domestic and international observers. The main reason for the opposition's defeat, however, was its failure to unite behind a single slate of candidates. In both elections, the opposition split its vote among three major ethno-regional parties and several smaller ones.

Democratization did make halting progress through the 1990s, however, as Moi's grip on power started to slip and political momentum gradually shifted to the opposition. With a narrow parliamentary majority after the 1997 elections, KANU could no longer legislate as Moi pleased. More important, a new generation of politicians, in alliance with a cohort of the old guard, began to assert its independence and openly defy Moi. This coalition was led by Kibaki, who had served as minister of finance under Kenyatta and as vice-president under Moi, before being shoved aside. Although Kibaki was a losing candidate in both elections, he finished second in 1997. The tide was beginning to turn.

UNDER THE RAINBOW

Kibaki's victory in the 2002 elections was the culmination of a long and difficult process. Then 71 years old, Kibaki beat Moi's designated successor, Uhuru Kenyatta, with 62 percent of the vote. Kibaki's party, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), also defeated KANU in parliamentary elections, winning 132 seats to KANU's 67. A reinvigorated election commission and 28,000 observers (supported by the United States, among others) certainly helped: the elections were largely free of violence and judged to be free and fair. Between May 2001 and November 2002, moreover, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney, and President Bush had met with Moi on four separate occasions to encourage him to retire and hold elections.

But the most important factor behind Kibaki's victory was the opposition's decision to unite around a single slate of candidates. It was a lesson that had taken a decade to learn -- NARC did not come together until ten weeks before the 2002 election -- and underscores the fact that democratic transitions are often protracted struggles requiring more than one election to complete.

NARC is exactly what its name implies: a coalition of parties. In fact, it is a coalition of two coalitions. The first, the National Alliance of Kenya (NAK), was formed five months before the 2002 elections, linking Kibaki's Democratic Party -- which drew its support from the Kikuyu people -- with a dozen other ethno-regional parties. NAK could win just over half the national vote if its constituent parties delivered all of their potential supporters. But betting the elections on such tight margins was too risky. The party found additional allies in another coalition: the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The LDP was formed ten weeks before the elections by three disaffected members of KANU, the most prominent of whom was Raila Odinga, the acknowledged leader of the Luo people. On October 22, 2002, NAK and the LDP signed a memorandum of understanding, thus creating NARC. The memorandum's key provisions were that Odinga would be appointed to the new post of prime minister and that cabinet posts would be divided "equally" between NAK and the LDP. Once NARC had been formed, the outcome of the elections was never in doubt. But NARC's formation underscores a fundamental weakness typical of political parties across Africa. The new party was -- and remains -- a coalition of convenience, united more by what it opposed than by what it actually stands for.

NARC's inherent weakness has been compounded by Kibaki's poor health and leadership style since he assumed office on December 30, 2002. The president was hospitalized in January 2003 after suffering a stroke due to injuries he sustained in a car accident just before the elections. He was unable to work full-time until early April 2003, which left a vacuum at the center of government and fueled speculation that the new president might not serve out his term.

Kibaki's method of governing has come under criticism. Whereas Moi micromanaged all aspects of government, Kibaki's approach has been to appoint competent people to head government ministries and delegate authority to them. This was Kenyatta's method when Kibaki served as minister of finance, and it worked well. It is unclear, however, whether this style will be effective under so-called Kenyatta II. Delegation requires clear guidelines, yet Kibaki's approach is often described as laid-back. The absence of a strong hand at the center of government has encouraged the most prominent leaders in the new government to pursue their own agendas, resulting in confusion and, at times, intense conflict within the ruling coalition. Indeed, four factions have emerged in the past year.

The first faction -- the old guard -- is a group of elder politicians and retired senior civil servants who were prominent during the Kenyatta era and who have been brought back to government. All are Kikuyu or Meru in ethnic background. They view Kenyatta's presidency as Kenya's golden age and believe that Moi wrecked Kenya by bringing into government a bunch of incompetents and looters. In their eyes, the central challenge today is restoring government competency rather than rethinking the role of government in the economy.