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Kenya - Politics

Several new opposition parties to the Kenya African National Union (KANU) emerged for the first multiparty elections in December 1992. They included the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD–Kenya), led by Oginga Odinga until his death in 1994, the Democratic Party led by Mwai Kibaki, and FORD–Asili led by Kenneth Matiba. A Commonwealth observer group at the elections concluded that they were flawed, but sufficiently free and fair for the results to be acceptable as the democratic will. KANU led by Daniel arap Moi won, against a divided opposition. In 1993 aid began slowly to flow again.

Despite the reforms of the early 1990s, the constitution remained the focus of political discontent, the opposition arguing that centralisation of power weakens the multiparty system. Some prominent figures within KANU were calling for the restoration of majimbo features of the independence constitution, to strengthen the rights of ethnic minorities.

In September 1997 the National Assembly approved electoral reforms that appeared to meet the opposition demands, including abolition of the anti-sedition laws that the government had used to suppress the opposition, granting equal broadcasting time to all political parties and presidential candidates, and giving the opposition representation on the Electoral Commission.

The elections in December 1997 were beset by organisational problems, flooding and violent demonstrations, and polling had to be extended for a further day. In the presidential election, Moi was re-elected with 40% of the votes, Kibaki of the Democratic Party received 31%, Raila Odinga of the National Development Party (NDP) 11%, Michael Kijana Wamalwa of FORD-Kenya 8% and Charity Kaluki Ngilu of the Social Democratic Party 8%. In the National Assembly elections, KANU took 109 of the 210 seats, the Democratic Party 39, NDP 21, FORD-Kenya 17, and Social Democratic Party 14.

In November 1999, a further constitutional amendment was enacted to reduce the powers of the president to control the National Assembly, powers that were originally introduced by Kenyatta.

In June 2001, Moi forged the country’s first governing coalition when he appointed to the cabinet two members of the opposition NDP – including Raila Odinga, son of Oginga Odinga, the country’s first vice-president and a presidential candidate in 1992, and in March 2002 the NDP was merged with KANU. However, Odinga then left KANU and formed the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and in October 2002 joined with Kibaki in the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). In late 2001, Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first president, was nominated as an MP and appointed minister, emerging in 2002 as KANU’s presidential candidate, replacing Moi, who by the end of the year would have been president for 24 years and who was bound by the constitution to stand down.

At his third attempt, in a relatively peaceful contest, Kibaki comfortably won the presidential election in December 2002, with 62.2% of the votes, while Uhuru Kenyatta received 31.3%. The National Rainbow Coalition gained a substantial majority in the parliamentary elections, winning 125 seats; KANU took 64 and FORD-People 14. The Commonwealth observer group present commended the Electoral Commission, said that the elections ‘represented a major improvement on previous such exercises’ and described the electoral process as credible.

In a referendum in November 2005 the proposed new constitution was decisively rejected. The constitution had been intensely opposed by a new grouping, the ‘Orange team’, which comprised Uhuru Kenyatta’s KANU and LDP, a party with members in Kibaki’s cabinet. Kibaki then dismissed his cabinet. When in December he formed a new cabinet he excluded opponents of the new constitution (mainly LDP) and included members of minority parties to shore up support for his government.

In 2007, the year of the elections, offshoots of the ‘Orange team’ – Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) led by Raila Odinga, and Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya (ODM-K) led by Kalonzo Musyoka – emerged as the main opponents to Mwai Kibaki and his newly formed coalition, the Party of National Unity (PNU). The PNU coalition included notably KANU which had earlier left the ‘Orange team’, FORD-Kenya, NARC-Kenya (an offshoot of NARC) and five other political parties. Tensions were high in the pre-election period, with outbreaks of violence and a varying number of resultant deaths reported.

Following a relatively peaceful polling day, results in the parliamentary elections of 27 December showed the ODM winning the most seats, 99, plus three more seats from its partner NARC, out of the total 210 contested seats. PNU took 43 seats and its coalition partners 35 seats; ODM-K 16 seats; independents 11 seats. A re-run was ordered for the three remaining seats. Delays in the announcement of presidential results provoked widespread unrest in the country. Earlier unofficial results had indicated Raila Odinga leading Kibaki by at least 200,000 votes, a deficit that was however overturned as the final Electoral Commission of Kenya results revealed: Kibaki won, receiving 4,584,721 votes; Odinga 4,352,993 votes; Musyoka 879,903. Commonwealth observers noted the elections as being the most competitive in the country’s history but raised doubts on the handling of the final stages of the presidential election, particularly the delay in announcing the results.

Protests following the presidential election results, citing the vote counting as flawed, intensified in a period that became one of the most violent yet seen since the country’s independence with several hundreds killed. Some of the violence assumed an ethnic dimension with the Kikuyu perceived as pro-Kibaki and the Luos viewed as Odinga supporters. On announcement of his new cabinet Kibaki named ODM-K’s Musyoka as his vice-president. A new law was passed to formalise the deal. Raila Odinga, subsequently, became prime minister in a grand coalition government.