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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The role of economic aspiration in elections in Kenya |
Author: | Oculi, Okello |
Year: | 2011 |
Periodical: | Africa Development: A Quarterly Journal of CODESRIA (ISSN 0850-3907) |
Volume: | 36 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 13-28 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Kenya |
Subjects: | political violence elections economic policy ethnicity political economy |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/24484038 |
Abstract: | The violence that erupted following the 30 December 2007 elections in Kenya is analysed in this article from a historical perspective, with a focus on the impact of economic aspirations - rooted primarily in land ownership - and on orientations to elections as forms of social action in Kenya's polity. The author looks at racial and ethnic conflicts over land, failures of the educational sector, the growth of poverty as a result of the implementation of structural adjustment polities (SAP) and the use of State power for grabbing access to economic resources. Creative responses by politicians to electoral challenges left Kenya's leaders unable to escape the hold of a colonial legacy of using the State as an instrument for entrenching 'structural violence'. Presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi built on the colonial strategy for managing challenges by socialist and pro-democracy forces to their hold on power. Both forms of social engineering gave prominence to tribalism as an organizing tool. The author suggests that stability in Kenya in the postconflict period requires a bold counter-social engineering that breaks down efforts to continue the use of tribalism to prevent redistribution of large landed estates in several parts of the country, particularly Coast and Central Provinces. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French. [ASC Leiden abstract] |