balance
Now that the elections are over, Kenyans are waiting to see if their country will prosper or slide into internecine violence. Eddie Koch reports
There is a place at sea, about two nautical miles from the coastal town of Shimoni and a little north of Kenya’s border with Tanzania, that echoes Ernest Hemingway’s depiction of this coastline as a case of natural beauty that is unmatched in the world.
When the tide goes out, a sandspit emerges from the middle of the Indian Ocean. From here visitors can, for a few ephemeral hours, swim out to a reef alive with tropical fish and iridescent coral, watch dolphins cavort in the pastel-blue waters, or gaze at the hazy mountains on the horizon where all of Africa’s wild mammals abound.
The perfection of the place belies the political chaos that gripped the mainland of Kenya during and after that country’s multi-party elections on the eve of New Year.
Daniel arap Moi won at the polls to become one of Africa’s longest-serving rulers, even though most political observers agree that he has, in the words of a New York Times report, ”turned the once prosperous East African nation, admired for stability on a continent rife with civil war and brutal dictatorships, into an economic cripple plagued by corruption and human- rights abuses”.
While the few tourists who did not cancel their holiday for fear of violence and a cholera outbreak in the shantytowns were lazing on the white sands or watching wildlife in some of the world’s most famous game reserves, a volatile political process was unfolding around the elections which will determine whether Kenyans regain their prosperity or see their country slide into the kind of internecine violence that has afflicted neighbouring Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and Congo.
There are ominous signals that Kenya could go the way of the rest of the region. The elections were far from orderly. More than 100 people died in the build-up to the vote, four of them shot by security forces during political demonstrations, and some 150 000 people became internal refugees as they fled their homes on the beautiful south coast after political leaders whipped up ethnic conflict to consolidate their power.
The election results indicate an divided nation, with voters casting their ballots mainly along ethnic lines. Members of the two biggest of Kenya’s 42 tribes, Kikuyu (the largest) and Luo, tended to vote against Moi’s ruling Kenya African National Union (Kanu) party.
Moi, in power for 19 years, won 40,12% of the presidential votes to earn another five-year term in office. He appears to have received the support of minority ethnic groups, while his closest rival, Democratic Party leader Mwai Kibaki, got 31,09% of the vote by appealing mainly to members of his Kikuyu tribe. Raila Odinga of the National Development Party, a member of the Luo group, came third with 10,9%.
Moi’s Kanu party also won only a slim majority in Parliament, where nine other political parties will be represented.
The fractured situation is akin to what political analyst Nicos Poulantzas called ”Bonapartism” after the situation that prevailed in post-revolutionary 18th- century France: where an authoritarian figure is able to impose his rule because factions and classes are too divided to form an alternative and stable governing bloc.
The opposition parties have rejected the poll as being rigged and have warned of increased dissent unless Moi forms a government of national unity.
Sedition is a real prospect as ordinary Kenyans blame Moi’s misrule and tolerance of high-level corruption for maladies that range from expensive school fees to cholera, from shortages of water and power to a lack of medicines and supplies in local hospitals.
Yet there appears to be no stable alternative to Moi’s rule. Okech Kendo, a local political reporter, argues that a ”coalition or Ogovernment of national unity’ may be working in South Africa, but in Kenya, where tribal sensibilities influence national politics, it will be unity of parties led by leaders who embody tribal sentiments. With this ethnic orientation, a coalition will be no more than a congress of tribes with temporary interests.”
Instead of attempting to forge a non-ethnic and efficient administration, Moi appears to have been more than willing to play the ethnic card in order to divide and rule over his opponents.
Opposition newspapers, under headlines that proclaim ”Moi ordered massacre”, insist that the ruling party orchestrated the internecine violence that broke out in the tourist belt on the south coast of Kenya in the month prior to the elections.
One informant, who has close links to Kenya’s intelligence services, told me there was evidence that a professional paramilitary group, disturbingly similar to the ”third force” used by South Africa’s apartheid government to remain in power, was trained in the Shimoni Hills district near the Tanzanian border.
The coastal economy of Kenya, by far the most vibrant in the country because of the region’s tourism appeal, is dominated by people from ”up-country”, many of them members of the dominant Kikuyu and Luo tribes.
The smaller coastal groups resent the intrusion of the ”uplanders” who dominate senior jobs and businesses connected to the travel trade.
”Kanu needs to win in five out of eight provinces in order to remain in power. It appears that professional instigators were sent into the south coast area to whip up antagonism between the coastal and inland people. About 150 000 people fled the area and most were from the anti-Moi inland tribes,” said the informant, who asked not to be named, days before the election.
”Election rules prevented people from voting unless they were in the area where they are normally resident and, as a result, the violence and the social dislocation it caused will deprive the opposition of these votes.”
This appears to have been the same strategy used in the Rift Valley before the 1992 elections. Similar ”third-force” tactics were apparently used to whip up conflict between Moi’s minority Kalenjin tribe and the Kikuyus, who were also ousted en masse as a result, allowing Kanu to win the district.
Members of Moi’s own party indicted senior Kanu leaders as the instigators of ethnic cleansing in the Rift Valley at the time.
There are, however, countervailing indications that Moi is now more willing to curb the balkanisation and top-level corruption that threatens to rip his country apart and that he is moving away from the dictatorial style that once caused him to say: ”I call on all ministers, assistant ministers, and every other person to sing like parrots.”
The president’s mind may have been concentrated by vehement international opposition to more than a decade of misrule. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and donor nations suspended aid in November 1991, thus catalysing the first multi-party elections a year later.
By 1995, foreign investment had dried up partly because infrastructure was inadequate, but also because politicians and bureaucrats demanded huge kickbacks.
In June last year the IMF suspended talks about a $220-million loan after the collapse of court proceedings in the so- called Goldenberg scam. At least four senior government officials were implicated in a case in which a jewellery company was paid millions of dollars for faked exports of gold and diamonds.
More important than global economics and international pressure are indications that the unprecedented levels of free speech and internal opposition have convinced Moi that his fragile hold on power will be eroded unless the corruption and misrule stop.
Instead of singing like parrots, ordinary Kenyans are now willing to speak out and oppose corruption and human-rights abuse. A vibrant free press has emerged in the last two years that acts as an important watchdog over the government.
During a speech at his swearing-in ceremony this week, Moi hardly bothered to deny corruption charges against his senior aides and chose instead to promise they would be ”rooted out”.
He also hinted that, with the elections behind him, ethnically divisive tactics would be curbed and he urged all parties to unite and work for a united country.
If these cohesive tendencies can override the forces of fragmentation, it may just be that the people of Kenya will be able to bring their political and economic systems more into line with the unrivalled natural harmony of their beautiful country.
CAPT: Jubilation: Supporters of Daniel arap Moi in Nairobi celebrate their president’s victory. photograph: brennan linsley
BLURB: There are indications that Moi is now more willing to curb the balkanisation and top-level corruption that threatens to rip his country apart