Kenya's power-sharing report card: 'unsatisfactory'

One year after ethnic violence tore the African nation apart, the coalition government is moving slowly – or not at all – to address the problems.

from the March 13, 2009 edition

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C is for corruption

Instead of its legislative successes, the joint government of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga has become better known for its scandals. Some 10 million Kenyans are at risk of starvation because government officials ignored warnings of a looming food shortage, and in fact sold some of Kenya's food stocks to neighboring Sudan. The problem has been exacerbated by a poor harvest and a man-made disaster as hundreds of thousands of Kenyan farmers fled their homes during the violence of early 2008, during the key planting season.

Other scandals, including the sale of government-owned properties to cronies, are not unusual. But the cumulative effect of these scandals is rising cynicism. Many Kenyans thought that multiparty democracy would be the cure for corruption under the one-party dictatorship of President Daniel Arap Moi. Then they thought that a coalition government would force rival politicians to stay honest.

"Instead of being a check on each other, you see them give a blind eye to each other's actions," says Florence Simbiri-Jaoko, head of the Kenyan National Commission for Human Rights in Nairobi.

Kenyan multiparty democracy began in 2002, and Kenyans demonstrated the power of their vote by tossing out 70 percent of the old parliamentarians in the December 2007 elections. She still puts her hope in the intelligence and persistence of Kenyan voters. "It's a difficult situation, but I'm a strong believer in Kenyans' ability to survive this thing. We have that advantage" over other African countries, says Ms. Simbiri-Jaoko. "We have a powerful civil society, which can be a watchdog over the grand coalition. If we have elected bad parliamentarians, let's be sure they will be accountable for their actions."

No reconciliation plan

The government's failure to reconcile its warring ethnic communities in the past year is mystifying, since it was the horrifying levels of ethnic violence – with 1,500 killed and up to 600,000 displaced – that forced Kenya's two main parties into negotiation in the first place. But since the power-sharing deal was signed in April 2008, Kenyan political leaders have simply told displaced people to go home, and set a timeline to shut down camps for those who were displaced.

There was a problem with this strategy. Many Kenyans lost their homes to fire or theft, and had nowhere to return to. Others were afraid of lingering animosity from their neighbors. According to the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation Monitoring Report, only 40 percent of the displaced have returned home.

Thousands of farmers now return to their lands to cultivate by day, only to return to the camps at night. The government has resettled many of these people in transit camps, set up next to newly built police stations. But tens of thousands of others still have no land to return to; no resources to rebuild their lives.

The fertile Rift Valley town of Eldoret, ground zero of the most vicious ethnic violence, was once home to tens of thousands of displaced Kikuyus. Now the camp here is all but shut down. Those who remain are businesspeople, like Rosana Kathure, who have lost their shops and are unable to start afresh with the 10,000 shillings ($125) in restitution given them by the government. Cut off from food aid and having no money for firewood, Ms. Kathure now tears off pieces of her plastic tent to burn as a toxic fuel to cook one daily meal for herself and her four children.

Grignon says that Kenyan politicians risk disaster in next election if they don't start to reconcile communities of the Rift Valley and elsewhere.

"Kenya's elite has to be careful," he warns. "If the Kikuyu displaced people don't have the support from government, they'll turn to the Mungiki (a violent Kikuyu militia) and take their land back. The Kalenjins will respond. Last time they used bows and arrows. Next time they will use guns."

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