I.Introduction: Ethnicity and Multiparty Politics in Kenya
By 1990 when Kenya’s movement towards democracy had intensified, the ruling party (KANU) decided to extract political mileage from ethnicity. Many Kenyans thought, perhaps wrongly, that under democracy, there should be competitive politics, that parties would be free to take their messages to voters, … When Kenya moved from one party to multi-party democracy, ethnic patterns developed along party lines (Machira, 2001:123).
During the 1990s, a wave of change in form of political reforms swept through the world and modified the political terrain of many states. In Kenya, the late 1980s and the 1990s marked a period of struggle for democratization and change including reverting to multiparty politics championed by groups and individuals in civil society. Indeed this was the decade of democratization for Kenya for multiparty elections were successfully conducted in 1992 and 1997 respectively albeit with minimal changes on the composition of the ruling political elite as the incumbent ruling party KANU won both the elections and remained in government. In the successive elections of 2002 and 2007, KANU was trounced by other parties. However, former KANU diehards re-emerge in government in new party outfits.
Even with the adoption of multiparty democracy, practices of poor governance and corruption are still widespread. Furthermore, multiparty democracy appears to have heightened ethnic nationalism and has been associated with ethnic violence. In Kenya, for example, except for 2002, ethnic violence has been witnessed in all the elections held after Kenya formally adopted multi party democracy in 1991. Indeed, Muigai (1995) and Ndegwa (1997:599) affirm that multiparty democracy has been a prelude to ethnic competition and have led to “protracted transitions or outright conflict” in Kenya. Drawing from these observations in various African countries, scholars have raised questions over the suitability of multiparty democracy in multi-ethnic states. How can multi ethnic African countries manage multi party democracy without provoking ethnic groups to engage in violence during and after elections? Such violence has created many fragile States – these are States that are too weak to hold different ethnic communities together as a nation state.
In general, the outbreak of ethnic nationalism the world over dilutes the anticipated benefits of democratization. Accordingly, as African scholars attend to the problem of democratization and multiparty politics, they should also address the escalating problem of ethnic nationalism and violence. The overriding question is how to manage multiparty democracy in multi-ethnic African states?
This paper attempts to address the challenges of multiparty democracy in multiethnic states using the Kenyan experience. The paper examines the emerging dynamics of ethnic nationalism and their impact and consequences on the process of building democratic multiethnic states in Africa. Further, the paper seeks to explore possible strategies for the management of democratic and multiparty transition in multi-ethnic societies using the Kenyan experience as the basis of reference.
