Tensions and Reversals in Democratic Transitions: The Kenya 2007 General Elections (review)

Kenya's December 27, 2007, election was tragic. Alarm over faulty counting, followed by a rushed and private swearing in of the sitting president, Mwai Kibaki, led to violence that was at once spontaneous and planned and involved considerable killing by police. About thirteen hundred people died and more than a half million were displaced. The collapse of the election and deep distrust among major politicians left no legitimate authority in place and even gave rise to imagined secession. It took a mediation effort by Kofi Annan, backed by the African Union and other donors, to fashion an agreement ending the violence and mandating a coalition government.

This is a big book of more than seven hundred pages with eighteen lengthy, theoretically engaged, and well-referenced essays. There are editorial mistakes, but they are not significant diversions. The authors, who represent a variety of disciplines, are almost all Kenyan scholars. The essays speak more to the nature of Kenyan politics that led up to the election with the near collapse of the state, and less to the violence itself. As a result, they are an important contribution to understanding the election crisis and its aftermath, and to the broad study of Kenyan politics and democratization.

The volume asks important questions. What happened and why? Why did democratic practice both include some and dangerously exclude others? These are big questions even for a sizeable volume that, mercifully in my view, does not try to impose all-too-tidy answers. But it does make suggestions, and the organization of the volume indicates where to look for answers—political economy history, social structure, the nature of political parties, religious institutions, local politics, electoral rules, popular culture, the media, the role of money in elections, the character of rising preelection tensions and violence, gender and the struggle of female politicians, and power-sharing in the aftermath of the violence.

The volume singles out promises that were not kept as an important cause of the breakdown. The 2002 election brought Mwai Kibaki to power with a wide margin, a reform mandate, and a broad-based coalition including the Luo leder Raila Odinga. At the time the Gallup International Annual End of Year Survey found Kenyans to be the most optimistic people in the world. But the optimism faded as Kibaki and his allies marginalized Odinga, condoned grand corruption, failed to deliver a promised new constitution devolving authority and diminishing presidential powers, and sidelined a truth and reconciliation process. Although economic growth occurred, the vast majority saw few benefits. Kibaki was elected as leader of a nation desperately seeking rebirth, but the regime retreated into a perceived Gikuyu ethnic cabal that fanned ethnic distrust as the 2007 election approached.

The volume has two important accomplishments, and while neither is earth-shaking or new, they provide necessary orientation for the study of Kenyan politics. First, it reminds us that change is constant. Kenyan politics is a moving target, although hemmed in by structural realities. Second, it suggests that voters are tuned in to both matters of ethnicity and patronage and to local issues and perspectives that are not necessarily imposed from above by national politicians and institutions.

In their fine introductory essay, Karuti Kanyinga, Duncan Okello, and Akoko Akech argue that the 2007 electoral disarray must be understood against a background of structural problems with deep histories. But the editors and chapter authors also depict a political system in motion, if often in contradictory directions. They remind us that while democratic systems challenge power monopolies, they may also encourage illiberal behaviors. For example, with the demise of single-party rule in 1991, the political system allowed electoral choice even as politicians worked hard at cementing identities to capture voters' attention and eliminate options. Kwamchetsi Makokha argues that while the political opening saw unprecedented media freedom, major media outlets...