Post Election Violence in Kenya - Essay Example

Cause of the Post Election Violence in Kenya Cause: Table of Contents Thesis Statement 4 BACKGROUND 4 THE FACTOR OF A RIGGED GENERAL ELECTION 7 THE ETHNIC FACTOR 9 The Kikuyus 10 The Luos 11 The Kalenjins 12 Luhya 12 The Kisiis 13 CONCLUSION 13 INTRODUCTION After the 2007 General Elections that were held in Kenya and conducted by the Electoral Commission of Kenya, the country erupted in violence that left over a thousand people dead and over two hundred and fifty thousand people internally displaced. This violence was widely believed that it was precipitated by a rigged election but there are other underlying causes as well that led to the worst bloodshed the country had ever experienced in its history. This prompted a reaction by the international community and various mediators were called in to the country to try and help end the violence. The law enforcement of the country had been overwhelmed by the violence and this led to the military being called in to help the situation and alleviate further bloodshed and bring the country back to its peaceful nature. It is important to note that the country was considered one of the most stable countries in Africa and was also playing a very important role in ending civil wars that were being experienced by its neighbors, the Republic of Somali and Sudan (Chege, 2008). These are the reasons why the world was keen to see the development of the country during and after the Post Election Violence. The international mediators played a very important role in restoring peace in Kenya but the country was very grateful to the two leading politicians in the country, President Mwai Kibaki and the newly named Prime Minister Raila Odinga. When the two principals agreed to share power, the violence ended. A rigged election has been blamed for the eruption of the violence in the country but there are other underlying reasons which led to the Post Election Violence. The country has a multi-ethnic outlook and there are various ethnic tribes that are not in good terms, and this is based on a historical perspective based on social-political and economical aspects (Kiai, 2008). Thesis Statement The Post Election Violence in Kenya could have been caused by a rigged election to some extent but there are other underlying causes for the violence. This paper will look into the extent the rigged election brought about the Post Election Violence and also how the other factors contributed to the violence. BACKGROUND During the 2002 election, the opposition of the country which was composed of many parties like, The Democratic Party (DP), led by Mwai Kibaki, Social Democratic Party (SDP), led by Charity Ngilu, Forum for Democratic Change in Kenya (FORD Kenya), under Kijana Wamalwa and a contingent of other minority parties joined hands in an attempt to oust the dominant party Kenya National African Union (KANU) from power. The coalition that was formed by the opposition parties was called the National Alliance of Kenya (NAK) and it was making very serious progresses towards bring an end to the KANU rule, which had been in power since independence in the year 1963. KANU felt threatened and President Moi, in an attempt to win the election tried various strategies in ensuring that the party would win the elections (The Nation, 2008). There were other developments in the ruling party KANU and one of the most destructive was the move by President Moi to support Uhuru Kenyatta to take the chairmanship of the party, which constitutionally would lead Uhuru Kenyatta to become the next president of the country if the party won the elections. This did not go down well with some major party officials who deemed that Uhuru did not have the experience to take up the responsibility that would be bestowed upon him. The president was relentless in his efforts to make Uhuru the president of the country. During the 2002 party elections, Uhuru won the chairmanship and some of the party officials, who also doubled up as ministers in the KANU government, resigned and formed a political movement of their own known as the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). However, Uhuru also had his own supporters in the party; hence the Party was almost split into two with some ministers remaining and others forming their own political outfit (The Nation, 2008). This posed as a problem, and the final stroke to the ruling party was when the defected ministers formed a coalition with the National Alliance Party of Kenya that had been formed by the opposition parties and formed the National Coalition Party of Kenya (NARC Kenya). The stage was set for a very competitive campaign that would lead to the General Elections of the year 2002. The most influential leaders of the coalition of the opposition, and the defected ministers were Mwai Kibaki, who would be the president if the Party won, Kijana Wamalwa, who would be the vice president, Raila Odinga, Charity Ngilu, George Saitoti, Kalonzo Musyoka, Martha Karua, among other influential politicians, who would all assume strong government positions, like Ministers and Assistant Ministers. It is important to note that all the parties had come to an agreement on how the major government positions would be well distributed among the various parties. Another important aspect that was very attractive to the electorate was the promise that there would be constitutional reforms within one hundred days of the party being in power (The Nation, 2008). However, a drift soon emerged between the National Alliance Party and the Liberal Democratic Party which formed the government under the National Coalition of Kenya. There were gross allegations by the Liberal Democratic Party that was being led by Raila Odinga that Mwai Kibaki who was the leader of the National Alliance Party of Kenya did not honor the power sharing agreements that had been reached by the parties prior to the national agreement. This would soon elevate to the levels where there were public accusations by both parties. The issue of the constitution was still standing and by the end of two years the constitution had not been reformed although the government had given a hundred days to do so. Both parties accused each other of being the hindrances towards the realization of this objective by the new government (The Nation, 2008). The government drafted a new constitution and this brought about the outright drift of the two ruling parties. While National Alliance of Kenya was advocating for the new constitution, the Liberal Democratic Party opposed and there was the necessity for a Referendum election for the new constitution. At this point the Liberal Democratic Party broke itself from the government and the ministers who were holding government positions resigned from their posts. This meant that the National Alliance of Kenya was the only ruling party in the country. At hand though there was the issue of the referendum campaigns, and the Electoral Commission of Kenya announced that that the politicians who were opposing the new constitution should embrace the term Orange for the campaigns, while the others would embrace the term Banana for their campaigns (Chege, 2008). The Referendum did not please the majority of the Kenyans and hence the Orange side emerged victorious. With this victory, the politicians who were opposed to the new constitution, and who hailed from both Liberal Democratic Party, and Kenya National Africa Union formed a party under the name Orange Democratic Movement, with the name being inspired by the Orange term they had been using in the referendum campaigns. This is the party that faced Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Union in the 2007 General Elections (Lynch, 2008). THE FACTOR OF A RIGGED GENERAL ELECTION There were allegations that the Post Election Violence was sparked off when Mwai Kibaki's was declared the winner of the presidential election by the Electoral Commission of Kenya. Hours after the announcement of the victory of President Mwai Kibaki, violence was underway in various parts of the country, and the majority of the people who were in the receiving end were the Kikuyus, and the Kisiis, who were considered to be the two dominant tribes in economical aspects. However, other tribes were also involved in the Post Election Violence. The Luos and the Kalenjins were the leading tribes in attacking the other communities and their number one enemy was the Kikuyus. This anger was deemed to be the result of the fact that Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner and his major political rival Raila Odinga was deemed to have failed to win the election (Barasa, 2008). It is still doubtful that a rigged election could elicit such a volatile reaction from the citizens of a country that is considered to one of the most peaceful countries in the African Continent. There have been suggestions that the violence could have been planned a number of months or even years before the actual election process. The mere fact that the election had been rigged could not have precipitated such a volatile reaction like that, and this can be determined by the fact that in the past elections, there have been claims of rigging but there have never been the case of violence of such extents. It can also be ascertained that the Kikuyus who are the dominant tribe in the country have had disappointments in the past as far as the elections are concerned but have never had the audacity to initiate violence to other tribes which were in power at that time chief among them being the Kalenjins. Former president Daniel Moi, was from the Kalenjin community and he was cited as having rigged a number of elections during his reign as the president of the country. However, these elections did not precipitate any violence in the country but there were tensions in the Central parts of Rift Valley Province which is occupied by both the Kikuyus and the Kalenjins (Bryson, 2008). The reason why the violence cannot be based on the rigged elections is because; the Kalenjins started attacking the Kikuyus in the central parts of the Rift Valley Province within hours while the tribes in the city of Nairobi who were supporting the opposition party attacked the Kikuyus and started looting shops within minutes of the announcement and the swearing in of Mwai Kibaki for his second term. If the rigged elections were a major contributing factor to the Post Election Violence, then the violence would have taken some time before the initial aggressions could have started (Mukinda, 2008). It is significant to note that Kenya is a multi-ethnic country and there have been existing ethnic tensions in various times in history. The Kikuyus have dominated various fronts of the country and these are in such aspects as economically, culturally and political. It is also imperative to note that the Kikuyus were the target of the violence, which means that the other tribes could have arranged to fight the Kikuyus in an effort of ethnic cleansing. This must have been supported by various prominent people in the country who did not support the Kikuyus or did not like the way the Kikuyus were running the business of the state, marginalizing other tribes in the nation. This can be supported by the fact that prior to the general elections of 2007, some tribes were spreading the gossip that all the Kikuyus would be taken back to their ancestral lands in the Central Province but the government deemed that this was only propaganda. Ethnicity played a very major role in the Post Election Violence in the country (Ndegwa, 2007). THE ETHNIC FACTOR Two tribes in the country can be said to be the most influential tribes in the country although other tribes are also influential. The two major tribes in the country are the Kikuyus who form the biggest part of the population and the Luos who are the second largest population of the country. Prior to the country gaining independence from the United Kingdom, the Luos and the Kikuyus were in very good terms both politically and socially. The new Kenyan government was formed in the year 1964 and Jomo Kenyatta was the first president of the country. It is essential to note that Jomo Kenyatta was a Kikuyu and he appointed Oginga Odinga as his first vice president. However, differences would soon erupt and very soon Oginga Odinga started his own party Kenya's People Union and quit the government. At that time the country was still a one party state and the president put limitations which were deemed to be correct constitutionally to the new party (Chege, 2008). That marked the beginning of the rivalry of the two tribes politically. This would elevate to outright rivalry between the two tribes but no violence could be afforded until after the year 2007 with the results of the 2007 general elections. It is important to look at the major ethnic tribes in the country (Lynch, 2008). The Kikuyus The Kikuyus form the biggest proportion of the country taking up 23% of the population. This is a no mean fete considering that the country is composed of more that 46 ethnic tribes in the country. The Kikuyus have also been deemed to be the most dominant tribe in various fronts like economics and politics. This has precipitated a lot of hatred directed towards them by other ethnic tribes chief among them being the Luos and Kalenjin. The Kikuyus are located at the central part of Kenya in the Central Province. They have produced two out of the three presidents that have been the leaders of the country since independence with Jomo Kenyatta and the current Mwai Kibaki hailing from the tribe of Kikuyu (Gollust, 2007). As far as violence is concerned, the Kikuyus have been meted violence by various tribes who live in The Rift Valley because a significant number of the Kikuyus live in The Rift Valley Province of Kenya. The tribe that has been very much against the Kikuyus in the Rift Valley is the Kalenjins and there have been various instances prior to the Post Election Violence where the Kalenjins have meted out violence on the Kikuyus. Many land clashes have been witnessed in the country between the Kalenjins and the Kikuyus but the most destructive was the Post Election Violence in the country (Gentellman, 2007). The Luos The Luos are the second most populous tribe in the country following the Kikuyus. They are located on the Western part of the country in the Nyanza Province. They are very influential in the country's politics although they have been overshadowed by the Kikuyu on this ends. Their main rivals are the Kikuyus and the Luos have cited that they have been short changed various times by the Kikuyu in their political ambitions in various periods of history, the first major one being when the first president Jomo Kenyatta did not honor their power sharing deal with his first vice president Oginga Odinga who hails from the Luo community. The second major time is when Raila Odinga the son of Oginga Odinga was short changed by the current President, Mwai Kibaki on their power sharing deal, when they formed a coalition government after the 2002 general elections. Apart from the Kikuyus the Luos do not have any other major rivals in the country although at times the political leaders from the Luo community have had differences with the Luhya leaders and the Kalenjin leaders (McCrummen, 2007). The Kalenjins The Kalenjins are located in the central highlands areas of the country in the Rift Valley province. They are the dominant ethnic tribe in the country although this has been overshadowed by the presence of Kikuyus in the area. This has brought about an intense hatred between the two ethnic tribes and this has precipitated a lot of violence in the past. It is important to note that the Kalenjins accuse the Kikuyus of taking up their lands in the Rift Valley which were unlawfully allocated to the Kikuyus by the administration of the first president who was from the Kikuyu community, Jomo Kenyatta. This region was one of the most adversely affected by the Post Election Violence. It is important to note that the second president of the country was from this ethnic tribe. However, the ethnic tribe during the Post Election Violence was the forerunner in fighting the Kikuyus who were residing in their region (Jopson, 2008). Luhya The Luhya people are located at the Western Part of the country in the Western Province. They are also a major political power in the country although their political affiliation are somewhat divided with some of them supporting the Kikuyus and the others opposed to the Kikuyus who are considered to be the dominant tribe of the country. On the run up to the general election the Luhyas were very divided with some of them supporting Raila's Orange Democratic Movement and the others supporting Kibaki's Party of National Unity (The Nation, 2008). The Kisiis The Kisiis are located at the border of Nyanza Province and The Rift Valley Province. They incline their politics towards the Kikuyus although they share the region with the Luo people and hence are formidable people in the politics of Kenya. They are also a thriving community in terms of economics and they are considered as the second dominant tribe in the country in economic terms following the Kikuyus (The Nation, 2008). These are the major ethnic groups in the country and there are contingents of other tribes which support the leaders from the major tribes. This has greatly posed a threat to the nature of the politics in the country because the people do not choose the leaders based on the ability but based on tribal affiliations in the country. The Kikuyus being the dominant group have been faced with hatred from many other tribes in the country and this can be seen as the major cause of the Post Election Violence (The Nation, 2008). CONCLUSION Although the accusations that the government rigged the general elections of 2007 could have led to the Post Election Violence in the country, ethnicity and the need for more diversification from the Kikuyu community played a very important role in contributing to the Post Election Violence in the country. This means that the country had a reached a point where the tensions between the tribes had reached a very volatile situation and a rigged election could have sparked off the tension within the communities. However, the issue of a rigged election cannot be solely the factor behind the Post Election Violence. Ethnicity was a major contributing factor as well and it is important to note that the dominating tribe in the country had been greatly advantaged by the first president and the second president in the allocation of resources. These sentiments could have been the major cause of the violence in the country. Bibliography B. 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