Author:
Abstract:
This article attempts to investigate and analyze challenges and prospects facing Kenya in its quest for democratization and construction of a viable state and cohesive society. Kenya before the post-2007 general election was viewed as an oasis of peace in a turbulent region, a situation that was enabled by stalled political transitions that never before turned to widespread violence. The post independence politics has orchestrated an ideology that does not favour democratization of the state and giving more power to the civil society. The article will seek to highlight how lack of a democratic system of government, where virtues like compromise, cooperation and consensus building are nurtured, and transitional politics in Kenya have been deeply polarized along regional and more prominently ethnic lines. Political parties, general elections results and the constitutional review tussles are cases in point. The civil society has a role to play in initiating and guiding debate on policies and their implications for a peaceful society, which in turn helps to create the type of environment in which normal political conflict and competition can be resolved without violence. Among the actors that the article will give attention is the church and other organizations. The questions this article will seek to investigate are: what impact have the political systems and the civil society had on promoting the values of compromise conciliation, consensus building and tolerance in an ethnically polarized society. Has the civil society been partisan or neutral to ethnic interests? How and when do civil societies become engaged in politics? Can it be an integrative force in nation (state) building? The answers to these questions will constitute the focus of our investigation.
Keywords:
Kenya, elections, democratization, political systems, civil society
References:
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W.R. Ochieng and E.S. Atieno-Odhiambo eds., Decolonization and Independence in Kenya – 1940–93, East African Educational Publishers Ltd., Nairobi 1996, p. xiii.
Ibidem.
Ohlson and Soderberg, Democratization and Armed Conflict in Weak States. p.10.
“Invention” is a terminology which has been widely used by several authors in reference to nation-state building. See for instance Atieno-Odhiambo, “The invention of Kenya” in Decolonization and Independence in Kenya p. 1; David Brandling, Review of the Invention of Argentina by Nicholas Shumway, in New York Times Book Review (13th October, 1991); Eric Hobswbawn and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, University Press, 1983.
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Ibid., p. 79.
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Ibidem.
Ohlson and Soderberg, Democratization and Armed Conflicts in Weak States. p. 13.
See: Joel D. Barkan, “Protracted transitions among Africa’s new democracies”, Democratization, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2000, p. 230; Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Valle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Africa-Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 61–63.
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Ibidem.
Ibidem.
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Ibidem.
Cherry Gertzel, Politics in independent Kenya, p. 7.
The East African Standard, 26th April 1966.
See T.J. Mboya, Freedom and After, London, Andre Deutsch, 1963.
Ibid.
Mutahi G. Ngunyi, “Building Democracy in Polarized Civil Society: The Transition to Multi-party Democracy in Kenya” in Oleke-Onyango, Kibwana and Maina (eds), Law and the Struggle for Democracy in East Africa, p. 257.
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Ibidem.
Ibidem.
1st Corinthians 12:12–13.
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Ibidem.
Ngunyi Mutahi, “Building Democracy in a Polarized Civil Society” in Law and the Struggle for Democracy, p. 259.
Ali Mazrui, “Current Socio-political Trends” in Frederick S. Arkhurst (ed), Africa in the Seventies and Eighties, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 49.
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http://www.kenyaweb.com
Ogot, B.A., “Epilogue 1989–93” In Decolonization and Independence in Kenya, p. 249.
Ogot, B.A., “The Decisive Years 1956 – 63” In Decolonization and Independence, p. 70.
Ibid., p. 70.
Ibid., p. 73.
Ogot, B.A., “The Politics of Populism” in Decolonization and Independence, p. 187
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Ibidem.
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