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Bleak Future for Multi-Party Elections in Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Roddy Fox
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Extract

With attention turning towards Kenya's second multi-party elections, due to be held before the end of 1997, it is imperative to look back to the flaws in the system which helped deliver President Daniel arap Moi and the Kenya African National Union (KANU) their victories in 1992. At present there is no sign of these defects being eradicated and the creation of new districts since then has demonstrated the Government's intention of enhancing an already biased structure. The underlying distribution of tribes and ethnic groups has had a fundamental impact on the electoral geography of Kenya, since they have controlled the delimitation of both the parliamentary constituencies and the administrative machinery of the whole country.1

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , December 1996 , pp. 597 - 607
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 The names of tribes and the ethnic groups to which they belong are taken from Republic of Kenya, , Kenyan Population Census, 1969, Volume II (Nairobi, 1971), pp. iv–v.Google Scholar

2 Forster-Sutton, S., Thornley, C. S., and Hyde-Clarke, M., Report of the Regional Boundaries Commission (London, 1962), Cmnd. 1899.Google Scholar

3 The Survey of Kenya has produced the following excellent series of maps: Kenya Parliamentary Constituencies – SK81C, Kenya 1:1 m, Edition 5 (Nairobi, 1991);Google ScholarNairobi Parliamentary Constituencies, Sheet A, Miscellaneous – SK52A, 1:50,000, Edition 4 (Nairobi, 1991); and Mombasa Parliamentary Constituencies, Sheet B, Miscellaneous – SK68A, 1:50,000, Edition 4 (Nairobi, 1991).

4 See Fox, R. C., Ethnic Distributions in Colonial and Post-Colonial Kenya (Pretoria, 1991).Google Scholar

5 Preparatory Review No. 2, Order 1966 of 19 December 1966, Legal Notice No. 344.Google Scholar

6 Kenya Parliamentary Constituencies Review Order 1987 of 11 November 1987, Legal Notice No. 309.Google Scholar

7 Republic of Kenya, op. cit. and Kenya Population Census, 1989, Volume II (Nairobi, 1994).Google Scholar

8 Discussed in Fox, Roddy, ‘Lesotho's Changing Electoral Geography, 1965–1993’, in Southall, Roger and Petlane, Tsoeu (eds.), Democratisation and Demilitarisation in Lesotho: the general election of 1993 and its aftermath (Pretoria, 1995), pp. 45–57.Google Scholar

9 Onim, Radiala, ‘Electoral Battlegrounds’, in New African (London), 234, 03 1987, p. 21.Google Scholar

10 Philip Ochieng, ‘More Work for Kenya MPs’, in Ibid. p. 35.

11 Constitution of Kenya, 1992, ch. 3, section 42 (3).

12 The electoral results shown in Maps 2–4 and Table 2 are from data provided by Kenya's Electoral Commission, published by The Weekly Review (Nairobi), 1992, Nos. 915, 917, and 918.Google Scholar

13 Of these 100 seats, 16 were unopposed, allegedly because of a variety of intimidatory tactics.

14 Compiled in Fox, R. C., Population Atlas of Kenya (Grahamstown, South Africa, 1995).Google Scholar

15 See ‘How Kanu Will Rig the 1997 Elections’, in Finance (Nairobi), 31 12 1995.Google Scholar

16 The Weekly Review, 1992, 915, p. 6.Google Scholar