Facts About Kenya: Political History
Kenya's administrative boundary still extends into the Sudan, creating the "Ilemi triangle."
In 1952 the Mau Mau movement, made up of Kikuyu militants, rebelled against the government. The fighting lasted until 1956.
On Dec. 12, 1963, Kenya achieved full independence. Jomo Kenyatta, a nationalist leader during the independence struggle who had been jailed by the British, was its first president.
From 1964 to 1992, the country was ruled as a one-party state by the Kenya African National Union (KANU), first under Kenyatta and then under Daniel arap Moi. Demonstrations and riots pressured Moi to allow for multiparty elections in 1992.
The economy did not flourish under Moi's rule. In the 1990s, Kenya's infrastructure began disintegrating and official graft was rampant, contributing to the withdrawal of much foreign aid. In early 1995, President Moi moved against the opposition and ordered the arrest of anyone who insulted him.
A series of disasters plagued Kenya in 1997 and 1998: severe flooding destroyed roads, bridges, and crops; epidemics of malaria and cholera overwhelmed the ineffectual health care system; and ethnic clashes erupted between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin ethnic groups in the Rift Valley.
On Aug. 7, 1998, the U.S. embassy in Nairobi was bombed by terrorists, killing 243 and injuring more than 1,000. The embassy in neighboring Tanzania was bombed the same day, killing 10.
In a successful effort to win back IMF and World Bank funding, which had been suspended because of Kenya's corruption and poor economic practices, President Moi appointed his high-profile critic and political opponent, Richard Leakey, as head of the civil service in 1999. A third-generation white Kenyan, son of paleontologists Louis and Mary Leakey, he had been a highly effective reformer as head of the Kenya Wildlife Service. But after 20 months during which he made a promising start at cleaning up Kenya's corrupt bureaucracy, Leakey was sacked by Moi. Kenya is regularly ranked among the ten most corrupt countries in the world, according to the watchdog group Transparency International.
In August 2000 UN aid workers estimated 3.3 million Kenyans were at risk of starvation due to a devastating East African drought.
An anticorruption law, sponsored by the ruling party, failed to pass in parliament in Aug. 2001 and imperiled Kenya's chances for international aid. Opposition leaders called the law a cynical ploy meant to give the appearance of reform; the proposed law, they contended, was in fact too weak and full of loopholes to make a dent in corruption.
Opposition leader Mwai Kibaki won the Dec. 2002 presidential election, defeating Moi's protégé, Uhuru Kenyatta (term limits prevented Moi, in power for 24 years, from running again). Kibaki promised to put an end to the country's rampant corruption. In his first few months, Kibaki did initiate a number of reforms-ordering a crackdown on corrupt judges and police and instituting free primary school education-and international donors opened their coffers again.
But by 2004, disappointment in Kibaki set in when little further progress was evident, and a long-awaited new constitution, meant to limit the president's power, still had not been delivered. Kibaki made no real progress on his mandate to stem corruption, which became glaringly evident when his anticorruption minister, John Githongo, resigned in Feb. 2005, frustrated that he was prevented from investigating a number of scandals. In July 2005, parliament finally approved a draft of a constitution, but in Dec. 2005 voters rejected it because it expanded the president's powers.
Founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo KENYATTA led Kenya from independence in 1963 until his death in 1978, when President Daniel Toroitich arap MOI took power in a constitutional succession. The country was a de facto one-party state from 1969 until 1982 when the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) made itself the sole legal party in Kenya. MOI acceded to internal and external pressure for political liberalization in late 1991. The ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in elections in 1992 and 1997, which were marred by violence and fraud, but were viewed as having generally reflected the will of the Kenyan people. President MOI stepped down in December 2002 following fair and peaceful elections. Mwai KIBAKI, running as the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), defeated KANU candidate Uhuru KENYATTA and assumed the presidency following a campaign centered on an anticorruption platform. KIBAKI's NARC coalition splintered in 2005 over the constitutional review process. Government defectors joined with KANU to form a new opposition coalition, the Orange Democratic Movement, which defeated the government's draft constitution in a popular referendum in November 2005.
Kenya was first populated by a number of small dispersed tribal groups; the main groups were the Kikuyu, Kamba, Luo and Masai. These tribes shared the same area of land although they all had different origins.
It wasn't until the 19th century that outsiders entered the interior of the country and as a result Kenya escaped the worst of the Arab slavers who concentrated more further to the south.
The coast however helped to form an important part of a chain of Omani Arab trading posts. These strings of trading posts dealt mainly in ivory and slaves and were under the control of the Sultan of Zanzibar.
The overshadowing of the Sultan's powers started in the late 19th century when both British and German personnel obtained trading concessions along the coast.
Britain was allotted what is now Uganda and Kenya; Germany was allotted what is now mainland Tanzania.
In 1893 Uganda became a British protectorate closely followed by Kenya - 1895. The British were just interested in controlling the rich resources of Uganda and to facilitate this they built a railway between Mombasa and Kampala using laborers from India, many of whom remained and have become todayÕs merchant class.
At the turn of the century British attention was drawn away from Uganda and settled upon Kenya. White farmers went in and set up plantations producing export crops. During this process many Africans lost their land; they were then forced onto inferior land or onto the labor market as a result of hut taxes imposed by the colonial administration.
By 1915 the majority of the fertile highlands were being used by the British and racial segregation of land effectively excluded Africans and Asians from owning properties there.
Presently a large majority of the land is still owned by expatriate or politicians and the country's employment problems are caused by the fact that there is limited access to the land and because only seven per cent of the total area receives enough rainfall to support agriculture.
Some tribes remained virtually unaffected by the plantations.
The pressure over land ownership and the controls over cultivation and marketing of cash crops by Africans prevented them from competing with the white settlers leading to the formation of nationalist organizations in the 1920's.
In 1929 one of the nationalist leaders Jomo Kenyatta was sent to England to negotiate on behalf of the Kikuyu Central Association.
During World War 2, as a result of Africans being conscripted, political consciousness expanded. The consequence of this was the formation of guerrilla troops, Mau Mau, who all took an oath to commit themselves to expelling all white settlers in Kenya and to eliminate the Africans who cooperated with or benefited from colonial rule.
In 1956 the Mau Mau rebellion was crushed, many people died also detention camps were set up and leaders of the Kenya African Union (KAU) were detained. The KAU was the successor to the Kikuyu Central Association; Dedan Kimathi the leader of the armed rebellion was executed.
This rebellion shook both the colonial administration and white settlers. A state of emergency was declared and the restrictions on African cultivation were lifted. A lot of effort was applied to encouraging the formation of a stable middle class.
In 1960 Britain agreed to have a conference with African leaders to discus the future of the colony the state of emergency was lifted. The Kenyan African Union reformed into the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) and Jomo Kenyatta turned from a feared leader of Black Nationalism into a grand old man of the settlers. He was released from prison and became the leader of the KANU.
KANU won the elections in the following year and voted in favor of a parliamentary system as opposed to a federal system which was proposed by the party of the minority tribes.
In 1963 independence was granted with Jomo Kenyatta as the country's first president.
In 1978 Kenyatta died. His ideas earned him many critics among them the vice-president Oginga Odinga who was part of an opposition party which was banned in 1966. Oginga Odinga was imprisoned, and then he was released after agreeing to join the KANU. In 1969 Tom Mboya a powerful member of Luo's government was assassinated leading to racial riots between the Kikuyu and Luo.
During the early 1970's Kariuki became the principle opposition leader until 1975 when he was assassinated, the army and parliamentary police acted to restore order.
Daniel Arap Moi took over from Kenyatta, he had an increasingly autocratic style and repression increased.
Moi was successful in settling a dispute with Somalia over its borders and normalized relations with Tanzania. In 1982 a failed coup led by the Kenyan air force, led to the disbanding of the air force and the creation of a completely new unit. In 1990, following the assassination of the Kenyan foreign minister Robert Ouko who had support threatened to reveal the names of corrupt ministers, major aid donors withdrew all support.
