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Why Kenya Imploded
George B.N. Ayittey, Ph.D.
The answer to this question is very simple: The ruling elites
never learn from the mistakes of others, not even their own
foolish mistakes. We repeat the same mistakes again and again in
Africa. Kenya never learned anything from its own 1992 electoral
conflagration. Nor did it draw lessons from the experience of
other African countries. You see, the Kenya situation is almost
an exact replica of what led to the collapse of Cote d’Ivoire.
Remember Cote d’Ivoire used to be the most stable and peaceful
country in the chaotic West African region? Whoever thought Cote
d’Ivoire would implode? What happened there? Exactly the same
power politics was at play.
For 30 years after independence from France in 1960, Ivorians
labored under a one-party state established by their first
president, the late Felix Houphouet-Boigny. Though his Partie
Democratique de Cote d'Ivoire (PDCI) was the sole legal party,
he promoted ethnic and religious harmony and succeeded in making
the Ivorian economy the envy of the region, attracting
immigrants from neighboring countries. But crony capitalism and
reckless spending scuttled its economic prospects. In the late
1970s, windfall earnings from cocoa and coffee -- the country's
major export crops -- were splurged on imports. To maintain its
import binge, the country borrowed excessively, pushing its
foreign debt from $1.66 billion in 1975 to $14 billion in 1988.
Huge sums extracted from the country's peasants were looted by
the president's proteges and stashed abroad. In 1990, for
example, the central bank calculated that some CFA 130 billion
[or $456 million] was being spirited out of the country
illegally each year" (Africa Report, May-June, 1990; p. 14). The
beneficiaries of this largess were the Christian south, in
particular, Houphouet-Boigny’s ethnic group, the Bauole, to the
detriment of the northern Muslims.
By 1990, the "Ivorian miracle" was over. Blaming Western
commodity speculators, President Houphouet-Boigny asked Ivorians
for a “solidarity tax” --cuts in wages and allowances, 40
percent for civil servants. But viewing the vast basilica
Houphouet-Boigny was building for himself at Yamassoukrou at the
cost of $360 million and the collapse of one-party rule in
Eastern Europe, Ivorians took to the streets and demanded the
prosecution of the grotos --- the corrupt ruling elite --
accusing “Houphouet-Boigny and some of his powerful government
ministers of having hidden away in Europe sums said to exceed
the foreign aid that Western donors have poured into Ivory
Coast" (The Washington Post, March 26, 1990; p.A17).
Houphouet-Boigny resolutely rejected demands for multiparty
democracy and unleashed his security forces on the protestors
with tear gas, stun grenades, and truncheons. Schools were
closed and 120 teachers were arrested (West Africa, April 2-8,
1990; p. 558). But mounting pressure -- through strikes and
street demonstrations -- forced Houphouet-Boigny to legalize
other political parties and to hold multiparty elections in
November 1990. He won a seventh term in a presidential election
generally regarded to have been rigged.
Social discontent against the corrupt ruling oligarchs bubbled
to the surface again in 1992 when angry citizens took to the
streets to protest rising poverty levels. University students
boycotted end of year examinations to protest higher bus fares.
Unemployed youth also went on the rampage, blocking mid-day rush
hour traffic. Producers of the country’s cash crops joined in.
When Houphouet-Boigny passed away in 1993, power-hungry
stalwarts within the ruling PDCI party could not even wait for
his burial and immediately began jostling ferociously to succeed
him. The prime minister, Alassane Outtara, should have taken
over but he was outmaneuvered by Henri Konan Bedie, the Speaker
of the parliament. Bedie, who hails from the same ethnic group
as Houphouet-Boigny (Bauole), however, departed from Houphouet’s
style of governance: dialogue and consensus.
In 1994, Bedie launched a highly xenophobic and ethnically
divisive campaign of "Ivoirite" -- Ivorian-ness -- ostensibly to
check the influx of foreigners. But opposition leaders claimed
the campaign was to promote his Baoule ethnic group and prevent
Ouattara, a Muslim for the north, from ever becoming president.
To tighten his grip on power, Bedie rammed through parliament an
electoral code designed to ensure his victory for the 1995
presidential elections, and changed the president’s term of
office from 5 to 7 years to lengthen his stay in office. Street
protests led to violent clashes with security personnel on 16
October 1995, and five lives were lost.
The rot continued. In August 1999, the Rally of Republicans (RDR),
a breakaway group from the ruling PCDI party, chose Ouattara as
their leader and presidential candidate. A nervous and panicky
Bedie ordered the arrest of RDR leaders. On Nov 12th, 1999, 11
leading members of RDR, including 4 members of parliament were
jailed for two years for allowing others to cause public
disorder. Street protests erupted. On Nov 26th, the police
sealed whole areas of Abidjan and arrested 8 more leaders of the
RDR in a northern town. The crackdown exacerbated political
tensions and further widened ethnic and religious divisions,
leading to events that culminated in the Dec 1999 coup.
General Robert Guie seized power on Dec 24, 1999 in a mutiny by
Abidjan-based soldiers over unpaid wages for their unit’s
service in a U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African
Republic. Capitalizing on a deeper popular discontent with the
regime of Henri Konan Bedie, rampaging soldiers called upon
General Guie, a former army chief of staff, to take over the
government. General Guie promised to "sweep the house clean" and
withdraw after holding transparent elections. He was hailed as a
hero. Serge Kassy, a popular singer, wrote a song thanking the
general and his soldiers for "liberating the country." But after
a few months of tasting power and wild Paris shopping-sprees by
his wife, the general began to have second thoughts. Power sweet
bad.
First, he asked the very Democratic Party, which he ousted in
the December coup for corruption, to select him as its
presidential candidate in the October 22 elections. When the
party refused, he declared himself a candidate anyway, as the
"people's choice." His popularity ebbed. There were two mutinies
in the military and an assassination attempt against him. The
country's singers turned against him. Tiken Jah Fakoly, a young
reggae star, released a song in August, "The Chameleon," urging
the general to "Keep your honor. Sweep the house clean and
return to your village, just as you promised." His junta
promptly yanked the song off the airwaves. Then on Oct 6, the
Supreme Court, presided over by Tia Kone, General Guie's
personal lawyer and other Guie loyalists, disqualified 14 out of
19 political rivals, including former prime minister, Alassane
Ouattara, for the presidential poll, thus eliminating the
preferred choices of more than 75 percent of the population.
Seven African heads of state, including Nigeria's Olusegun
Obasanjo and South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, visited Abidjan,
following an Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting in Lome
on the Ivorian crisis. They urged General Guie to step down or
face the possibility of sanctions. General Guie adamantly
refused to head these warnings and proceeded with the October 22
presidential election, which was contested by Laurent Gbagbo, a
major opposition candidate. Only 36 per cent of Ivorians
bothered to vote.
However, when preliminary results showed the general losing,
soldiers invaded the offices of the Electoral Commission, halted
the vote-count and dissolved the Commission. The junta then
released its own results, claiming the general had won. The
announcement immediately set off a wave of angry protests and
demonstrations in Abidjan, the capitals and other cities around
the country. Thousands took to the streets, setting up
road-blocks, burning tires and hurling rocks and bottles at
Guie's troops. As the crowd marched to the state-owned
television station, they were joined by defecting soldiers and
troops of the 4,000-member paramilitary gendarme force. General
Mathias Doue, the junta's second-ranking officer, resigned.
General Guie saw the writing on the wall, boarded a helicopter
and fled to Cotonou, Benin on October 25.
The next goat-head, Laurent Gbagbo, apparently had learned
nothing. For the 2004 presidential elections, his parliament
hastily re-introduced the dastardly policy of Ivorite again and
the country erupted in flames. Though a shaky peace accord
holds, it is still divided between the Muslim north and the
Christian south. It will take decades to heal the rift.
Now, turn to Kenya and it is the same dreadful disease – a
political landscape and power monopolized by the Kikuyu and you
can multiply this example many times across Africa.
“Government” is often hijacked by a cabal of bandits and
gangsters, who use the state machinery to enrich themselves,
their cronies and tribesmen and exclude all others. -dominated
government. It is called the “politics of exclusion.” The
richest persons in Africa are heads of state and government
officials. The chief bandit is often the head of state himself.
It is no coincidence that the Kibaki government was once
referred to as the “Mount Kenya mafia.” What would you do if you
are a member of the politically-excluded group? You may exercise
one of the following three options.
The first is to vote with your feet and go settle somewhere,
which is why Africa is crawling with refugees; over 12 million
of them. The second option is to break away and set up an
independent state for your ethnic group: Biafra (1967), Eritrea
(1991), Cabinda (2002), among others. The third option is to
mount a rebel insurgency from the bush and set out to remove the
ruling vampire elites from power and replace them with your own
ethnic group. In fact, nearly all of Africa’s civil wars, rebel
insurgencies and violence are always started by politically
excluded groups – except perhaps in Chad, where a rebel movement
against President Idris Deby is led by his own relatives! Lord
have mercy. Obviously, the solution to many of Africa’s
political woes is the politics of inclusion. But would the
ruling elites implement political reforms that are inclusive?
Over their dead bodies – literally. They will perform the
“Kibaki kibanjie” – one step forward, three steps back. What
happened to Kibaki’s 2002 promise of constitutional reform in
100 days?
In December 2007, I urged Kenyans to go to the polls on Dec 27
and send the greedy, career politicians packing – all of them,
those who have been in government or parliament for more than 20
years. They are all the same: ossified politicians driven more
by personal ambition and care less about their country. Fresh
new faces should be brought in and sweep parliament clean. Only
then would any meaningful reform of the dysfunctional and rotten
Kenyan state be possible.
Nobody listened. I could say: “I told you so” but that won’t
resolve anything.
At least 1,000 Kenyans have died and more than 500,000 have been
displaced by the violence. It may be hard to take this and it
might sound like rubbing salt into an open wound. But I place a
greater part of the blame for all these death and destruction on
Raila Odinga and the opposition. Not that I pine for Kibaki; he
is a failure himself. You see, we need an intelligent opposition
to make democracy work in Africa, not a rah-rah noisy opposition
who just chant “Kibaki Must Go.”
The opposition must do its home work. It must know its enemy,
study its tactics and develop effective counter-strategies
accordingly. It should know that every incumbent African
president will steal elections. It must also know how they steal
elections: By packing the Electoral Commission with their
cronies, inflating voters’ register, stuffing ballot boxes with
fake ballots, nullifying the votes of opposition supporters,
reporting fake results, etc. etc. An opposition leader must know
of all these tricks and develop effective counter-measures.
Kenya’s opposition did none of this. They were asleep when the
process was being rigged. How can you Raila Odinga vote when
your own name was not on the ballot? He had to produce
identification before he was allowed to vote!
Here is a warning to Africa’s opposition parties. The incumbent
is not going to hand power over to you on a silver platter. You
must do your homework. Make sure the political playing field is
level BEFORE you contest the elections. Make sure that:
1. The voters’ register is clean and up to date,
2. The Electoral Commission is independent and made up of reps
of all parties,
3. The media is independent and not controlled by the state,
4. The judiciary is independent and packed with the president’s
cronies,
5. The security forces (military and police) are neutral and
professional and would maintain law and order, and not protect
only those from a certain party or ethnicity.
6. Counting of ballot papers takes place in the presence of all
party reps.
7. Posted results match those from the polling stations, etc.
etc.
If the opposition doesn’t do its home work, contests an election
on a field that is not level and loses, it should not come out
screaming “Foul, foul”. A hard line must be taken because
Zimbabwe holds elections next month (March) and do we want to
see the same foolish mistakes repeated there too?
But Kenya burns and the next piece will provide the real African
solution to the crisis.
Related article:
Why Kenya
Imploded: The Solution
__________________________
The writer, a Ghanaian, is the President of the Free Africa
Foundation
and a Distinguished Economist at American University, both in
Washington, DC. He is the author of Africa In Chaos and Africa
Unchained.
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