Vol 49 No 25 |
- KENYA
- ANALYSIS
A year after the flawed elections, much of the fire has gone out of the once radical opposition Orange Democratic Movement. Odinga, the firebrand ODM leader, held a meeting for his constituents in Nairobi’s Kibera’s slum to thank them for voting for him. He yelled the rallying cry ‘ODM!’, expecting the crowd to respond as it used to ‘Chungwa!’ (Orange!), the party colour and symbol, but they roared back ‘Unga!’, the maize flour that makes up the staple diet of ugali.
Politics is now taking second place to overwhelming concerns about the economy. Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement had promised lower rents and food prices, but its...
The first of the two commissions on Kenya’s election crisis – both advocated by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and his group of eminent persons –...
The Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence was chaired by Kenya’s Justice Phillip Waki and included Gavin A. McFadyen, former Assistant Commissioner for Operations in the New Zealand...
The Waki report on post-election violence names names, tells
tales and could help clear up the nation's politics
Kenyans feared another whitewash when Justice Philip Waki was appointed to head the Commission to Investigate the Post-Election Violence. Yet he has confounded the sceptics and produced a...
Justice Philip Waki produces a devastating critique of Kenya's political class and business elite
The mandate of the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (CIPEV) was to 'investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding the violence, the conduct of state security agents in...
Vol 49 No 22 |
- KENYA
- SUDAN
The news that the arms onboard the hijacked MV Faina were destined for the Government of Southern Sudan – via Kenyan end-user certificates and covert transport –...
A well-intentioned reform threatens the country's regional parties and alliances
The political parties are waking up to the potentially ruinous implications of the new Political Parties Act. Passed into law in the run-up to last year's ill-fated general...
Somalia's pirates are busy guarding the 33 Ukrainian tanks and other equipment captured on the MV Faina on 25 September. United States' naval vessels surround the ship...
Public inquiries into Kenya's electoral troubles offer a safety valve, not a solution
Two official commissions of inquiry completed their public hearings last week. The Kriegler Commission’s subject is electoral fraud in the disputed presidential election of December 2007; the Waki...
Commissions of inquiry are the Houdini act of the Kenyan state, getting the government out of tight spots by a public display of evidence, later shelved and producing...
A report shows how politicians, administrators and churchmen
fostered the post-election slaughter and calls for their prosecution
The state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights has produced a well researched but politically explosive report which links six government ministers to the violence that followed this...
The August report by the Kenya National Commission on Human
Rights lists many groups and individuals involved in the post-election
violence but it is far from exhaustive.
In Nairobi, attacks were launched by the ethnic gangs known as Siafu, Bukhungu, Jeshi la Darajani, Ghetto and Mungiki. The Siafu gang was supported by 'some councillors' and...
There are tremors within the power-sharing grand coalition
that ended the post-election mayhem
A day after the no-confidence vote in Parliament against ex-Finance Minister Amos Kimunya, the Deputy Prime Minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, called a press conference. He was belligerent, describing the...
The newspapers and the ODM are having fun but what really happened?
The government's secret sale of Nairobi's Grand Regency Hotel has caused a political storm, induced the resignation of Finance Minister Amos Kimunya on 8 July and raised many...
Vol 49 No 15 |
- KENYA
- LIBYA
Libyan investment in Kenya has grown over the past three years from almost nothing to an estimated tens of billions of Kenya shillings. The Libyans are now on...
Plots in the 3,000 acre Moi Ndabi settlement scheme in Naivasha were laid out by the government in 1994 for victims of ethnic clashes. They went instead to...
Attorney General Amos Wako's delays in prosecuting officials accused of involvement in the Anglo Leasing scandals (AC Vol 45 No 11) means the Kenyan courts may dismiss the...
The power-sharing government is shaken by scandals and tales of mass murder but nobody sees an alternative
Three months after the painful formation of a grand coalition government (AC Vol 49 No 11), there is talk of a 'grand opposition'. Two developments encourage this. ...
Vol 49 No 11 |
- KENYA
- ANALYSIS
The grand coalition government that emerged from a power-sharing agreement has largely succeeded in halting ethnic violence
The power-sharing deal seems deliberately ambiguous, based on the theory that Mwai Kibaki (with his Party of National Unity, PNU) would be President and Prime Minister Raila Odinga...
There is little prospect that the Independent Review Commission, chaired by South African Judge Johann Kriegler, will get to the bottom of the election skulduggery that triggered mass...
This week, Finance Minister Amos Kimunya has downplayed talk of a looming budget crisis and slumping growth rates. His determined optimism follows a statement by National Development Minister...
A new, overstuffed government brings back familiar faces but offers few hopes of reconstruction
Kenyans seem relieved to have a government but baffled at the brazenness of their politicians. The deal between President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga was better than a...
The new ministerial team is Kenya’s most expensive ever: 42 ministers and 52 assistant ministers out of 222 members of parliament – 42% of all MPs. President Mwai...
The suspension on 8 April of negotiations over cabinet portfolios risks taking the country back to the turmoil of January and February. Just after Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic...
Following the political deal this month, Kenyans are hoping for another deal to restart the economy. Conservative estimates put the cost of the post-election crisis at around US$1.5 billion and the loss of more than 1,000 lives. Yet the effects of more than 300,000 people chased from their homes and the disruptions to subsistence and export crop farming will hit the economy for months to come
This month, Kenya's economy faces it first big post-election test when the successful mobile telephone operator Safaricom lists on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE). According to the ever...
Formed a decade ago, Trans-Century Limited has grown over the past five years to become the biggest private equity firm in East Africa, with a multimillion dollar portfolio....
President Mwai Kibaki and putative Prime Minister Raila Odinga spent the day together at the Karen Open, Nairobi's most prestigious golf tournament on 10 March. Spectacularly out of...
A compromise deal has pulled the rival parties back from the brink but much detail still has to be resolved
The two-page agreement signed by President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga at Harambee House on 28 February could hardly have been simpler. Drafted by Attorney General...
In the aftermath of the signing of the power-sharing agreement on 28 February, Raila Odinga turned to his adversary, addressing him as 'My countryman, President Mwai Kibaki'. Ever...
Signs of progress, however elusive, are boosting hopes for a deal but the militias are rearming - just in case
The announcement of a political deal on 14 February at talks at a Kilaguni Game Lodge mediated by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan boosted morale but...
Outsiders have been belatedly increasing pressure on Kenya's feuding politicians as former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan moved the negotiating teams to the secluded Kilaguni Safari Lodge...
After another spate of murderous attacks and high level political obstruction, many see military intervention as a desperate remedy
Amid the latest round of killing in the Rift Valley, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame suggested that intervention by Kenya’s military may be the only solution left: ‘I know...
Confidence at State House was knocked by their party’s appalling parliamentary results in the 27 December elections and the furore over the disputed presidential vote. For several days,...
At the height of this week’s violence in the Rift Valley, senior Kenyan politicians on both sides of the divide began discussing the possibility of a military intervention....
Much hard work lies ahead if the awkward meeting between Odinga is to lead to a resolution of the worsening crisis
Such is the depth of despair about the intractability of the post-election crisis that many saw the meeting of Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, arranged by former United...
Pastor Robert Kipchoge Birgen of the African Inland Church in Chepsiria is an Oskar Schindler of the North Rift, a man who saved the lives of people hunted...
Both sides in Kenya’s election stand-off are looking into the abyss and a few politicians are preparing to jump. Without serious efforts now to resolve the impasse between...
Vol 1 (AAC) No 11 |
- KENYA
- JAPAN
Tokyo promises to keep up its Africa momentum but is losing big contracts to China
Japan would honour its promises to increase aid and investment
in Africa despite the departure of Prime Miniter Yasuo Fukuda,
said Foreign Minister Shintaro Ito during a trip to Kenya
this...
Vol 1 (AAC) No 10 |
- KENYA
- LIBYA
- INDIA
Efforts by Kenya to push a compromise over a refineries contract between companies from Libya and India over oil are proving messy
Kenya finally has succeeded in bringing together rival suitors for an oil refinery rehabilitation contract - but failed to secure an agreement. The acting Finance Minister, John Michuki,...
Vol 1 (AAC) No 3 |
- KENYA
- ASIA
A diplomatic silence from across the Indian Ocean is helping the Kibaki government play down the election crisis
As Western governments consider placing sanctions on Kenyan leader Mwai Kibaki and his ministers for refusing to negotiate over the disputed elections, Asian states have maintained a near...