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It's the economy, stupid (not "tribalism")
NAIROBI, 9 January 2008 (IRIN) - The wave of violence that
engulfed Kenya after the presidential election has been widely
described as tribal or ethnic in nature. But analysts in the east
African country point to basic economics as the true cause of the
unrest.
Widespread violence and a humanitarian crisis were triggered by
the 30 December announcement that incumbent Mwai Kibaki had won a
hotly contested presidential poll amid opposition claims of
rigging and international observers' reports of serious
irregularities in the vote-tallying process.
"In the urban areas, there was a lot of senseless burning and
looting, which was people taking out their economic grievances
during a leadership vacuum. They just let loose and attacked any
targets, burning their neighbours' houses, regardless of whether
they are PNU [Party of National Unity, Kibaki's party] or ODM
[Orange Democratic Movement, the opposition]," Macharia Gaitho, a
political columnist, told IRIN.
While specific ethnic groups - there are more than 40 in Kenya -
were targeted during the violence, the tensions that led to such
clashes were not the result of ethnicity per se, but, according an
editorial in the Sunday Nation newspaper, an almost inevitable
consequence of the country's economic system: "Kenya practises a
brutal, inhuman brand of capitalism that encourages a fierce
competition for survival, wealth and power. Those who can't
compete successfully are allowed to live like animals in slums."
Inequality pervasive
In Nairobi, more than 60 percent of the population live in slums,
some of which lie a stone's throw away from the city's most
luxurious houses.
According to a report (Pulling Apart: Facts and Figures on
Inequality in Kenya) by the Nairobi-based Society for
International Development (SID), Kenya is the 10th most unequal
country in the world in terms of wealth disparities. Of Africa's
54 states, it is the fifth most unequal.
The 2004 report, using UN Development Programme figures, states
that Kenya's richest earn 56 times more than its poorest: the top
10 percent of the population controls 42 percent of the country's
wealth, while the bottom 10 percent own 0.76 percent.
Inequality pervades every aspect of Kenyans' lives, according to
the report, citing enormous disparities - both in the capital and
at national level - in almost every sphere of life: income; access
to education, water and health; life expectancy; and prevalence of
HIV/AIDS.
A person born in the western Nyanza province, the bedrock of ODM
support, can expect to die 16 years younger than a fellow citizen
in Central province, Kibaki's home turf. Child immunisation rates
in Nyanza are less than half those in Central.
Another impoverished region is North Eastern province. While
almost every child in Central attends primary school, only one in
three does in North Eastern. More than nine out of very 10 women
in North Eastern have no education at all. In Central, the
proportion is less than 3 percent. In these two provinces, there
is one doctor for 120,000 and 20,000 respectively.
Kibaki's role
Critics of Kibaki, who came to power in 2002, accuse his
government of failing to address this inequality and of focusing
instead on the economic growth seen over the past five years.
Before he came to power on a wave of euphoria and hope after 24
years of rule under the autocratic Daniel arap Moi, Kenya's growth
stood at minus 1.6 percent. In 2007, it reached 5.5 percent and
before the elections was predicted to hit 7 percent in 2008.
This growth has been concentrated in the service sector, with
banks, tourism and communications companies making big profits.
Prices of shares and property have also soared.
But rather than trickling down to the worst off, this boom appears
to have been very selective in its beneficiaries while the poor
have seen the purchasing power of their shilling shrink.
Before Kibaki came to power, "we used to buy sugar for 45
shillings", Agnes Naliaka, a long-term resident of Nairobi's
Kawangware slum, told IRIN. "Now it's 65 shillings. A kilo of
cooking fat was 50 shillings. Now it's over 100 shillings," she
said, adding that rents in the slum had doubled over the past five
years.
For David Ndii, executive director of the Kenya Leadership
Institute, "the Kibaki government has been very cavalier about the
treatment of the poor. Hawkers' stalls were demolished and they
were not given any alternatives. Economic policies have not been
pro-poor. This growth has been biased in favour of profits as
opposed to translated into jobs."
Fast growth
"When a poor economy starts to grow very fast like Kenya did,
levels of inequality rise," MJ Gitau, a SID programme officer and
contributor to the inequality report, told IRIN.
"You need assets and property rights to participate in economic
production and exchange. Only a few have assets, are educated,
able to save and invest, to take advantage of the high growth
rates of the last few years. Those who have, get more. Those who
do not, lose the little they have," Gitau explained.
Ethnicity came into play during the election violence because of
the widespread perception that those who fared best under Kibaki
were his own Kikuyu group, the country's largest, which dominated
politics and the economy both under his administration and that of
founding president Jomo Kenyatta.
However, Kibaki's party says poverty levels have fallen from 56 to
46 percent, lifting some two million people out of abject poverty,
and that more than 1.8 million jobs were created during his first
five-year term.
"Our country is shining once again and I have ever bigger plans
for the development of the country during my second term. We are
changing people's lives for the better," Kibaki declared two weeks
before polling day.
That is not how many Kenyans see it.
"People reacted like they did because they were hoping for change
[after the 2002 election]. Kibaki came and promised many things
which he didn't do," said Agnes of Kawangware slum.
Let down
Kenya's youth in particular, who make up a majority of the
population - and of those who rioted - feel the most let down.
Improved education gave them hope of a better life than their
parents', hope that was dashed, according to Kwamchetsi Makokha of
Nairobi-based communications consultancy Form and Content.
"Under colonialism, it was almost a slave labour system which grew
up in the early days of the coffee estates. After independence [in
1963], the white master was simply replaced by the black master. A
lot of young people who got a bit of education could not see
themselves working for pittances as farm labourers. They started
drifting to the cities where the opportunities are not enough to
accommodate all of them. You have this massive influx of people
who just can't find work," he told IRIN.
Nor can they find a political voice, he added. "The common Kenyan
citizen who does not have money or property does not have a say in
how Kenya is organised. They never have. It's always been about
what car you drive, where you live, and then you have more rights
than other people."
Another ingredient in this combustible mix is corruption, which
Kibaki pledged to eradicate but which under his rule, according to
analyst and author Gerard Prunier, "reached new heights, matching
some of the excesses of the Moi years".
Observers hope that the explosion of anger and violence Kenya has
witnessed over the past week will shake the country's political
leaders into resolving not only the row over who one the election
and how power should be shared but also the country's deep
inequalities.
"If anything positive is to come out of this electoral stalemate
and the criminal destruction that has visited it, one hopes it
will have served as a wake-up call to all Kenyans that the yawning
gap between the middle class and the poor is a powder keg just
waiting to explode with the most grave consequence," warned
columnist Washington Akumu in the Nation.
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