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D
emocratic elections in Kenya in 2002 were sup-posed to have heralded a period of intense politicaland economic reform. At the start of its term inoffice, the government of Mwai Kibaki did undertake a number of important reforms, including the creation of a special unit tasked with overseeing the fight against cor-ruption and fraud. Unfortunately, the reform process soonran into trouble. The governing coalition disintegrated andfactional strife reemerged—much of it along ethnic lines.The government’s commitment to reduce the power of thepresidency was soon abandoned. Moreover, grand-scalecorruption accompanied the end of the reform process.But there are hopeful signs in Kenya and other partsof Africa. The end of Daniel arap Moi’s autocratic rulereinvigorated the democratic forces in the country. Theyoung generation especially treats Kenya’s politicianswith growing skepticism, and civil society and the media are increasingly active in exposing corruption and mis-rule there. The process of public awakening is not partic-ular to Kenya. Globalization and technological changeare having noticeable empowering effects on Africanyouth. With growing frequency, demands for account-ability and a better government are being heard through-out the continent.
the cato institute1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. 20001-5403 www.cato.orgPhone (202) 842-0200 Fax (202) 842-3490MARCH 15, 2007
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no. 2
Kenya’s Fight against Corruption
 An Uneven Path to Political Accountability
by John Githongo
 John Githongo is the former permanent secretary for governance and ethics in the Office of the President of Kenya and a senior associate member of St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. This paper is based on a talk given at the Cato Institute on March 29, 2006.
 Executive Summary
 
Introduction
In December 2002, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) came to power in Kenya asa result of democratic elections. That eventended 24 years of a stifling autocratic rule by Daniel arap Moi and his Kenya AfricanNational Union (KANU). Moi had cededdemocratic space with reluctance and in badfaith. He had gone to every length to confuse;bribe; intimidate; and, at times, injure oreliminate the forces of change in the 1990s.One of the most important developmentsthat came as a result of the peaceful transi-tion at the end of 2002 was the entrenchmentand further expansion of democratic spacethat had been fought for and won bitterly over the past few decades. Kenyans had notso much voted for this or that party. Rather,they voted for change. They voted for a change in the way they were governed andhoped for a more accountable and transpar-ent government. They were tired of the oldorder and wanted something new, somethingbetter. They were also excited that, at the lastminute, the opposition had finally united.That hunger for change was not a uniquely Kenyan phenomenon. Across the Africancontinent similar expectations of changewere coalescing and continue to do so.
The National Rainbow Coalition UndertakesImportant Reforms
Within months of the election, the new administration had embarked on an ambitiousprogram of reform that included, among othermeasures, the creation of a Ministry of Justiceand Constitutional Affairs, my own appoint-ment as the permanent secretary in charge of governance and ethics, and the appointment of a new director of public institutions, who wascharged to create a special unit to address cor-ruption, serious crime, fraud, and asset forfei-ture. The Anti-Corruption and EconomicCrimes Act of 2003 was signed into law by Kenya’s new president, Mwai Kibaki. Theprocess of institutionalizing the resultantKenyan anti-corruption commission as the pre-mier anticorruption agency was completed atthe end of 2004.The government also established the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, cre-ated a specialized cabinet committee on cor-ruption, and institutionalized the declarationof assets and liabilities by public officials afterpassing the Public Officer Ethics Act in 2003.In addition, the Goldenberg Commission of Enquiry was established to get to the bottomof the Goldenberg scandal of the early 1990s,in which corrupt government officials hood-winked the Kenyan taxpayer out of approxi-mately US$1 billion. The Commission onIllegal and Irregular Allocation of Public Landand the National Anti-Corruption Campaignwere established, as was the Task Force onTruth, Justice, and Reconciliation, with theaim of ascertaining public opinion as towhether a truth commission should be set up.There was also a dramatic reform of the judi-ciary that saw 50 percent of the top judgesremoved from office.
The Coalition Beginsto Unravel
It is important to note that all the reformsdiscussed above were initiated within the firstnine months of the Kibaki administration.Unfortunately, disagreements over the consti-tutional review process, the powers of the pres-idency, and the inability to agree on the post of the prime minister splintered the NARC coali-tion. Virtually overnight, NARC became dys-functional, with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) pitted against the National AllianceParty of Kenya (NAK). The constitutionalreform process of 2003 culminated in theNovember 2005 referendum on the proposedconstitution. The referendum became anarena in which the internal disagreementswithin the coalition were played out.Those disagreements could have beenanticipated, since in the immediate after-
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The 1990s saw anunleashing of many freedoms,which changedthe way in whichAfricans seethemselves.
 
math of the single-party state in 1991, theoppositions splintered along ethnic lines.Individual parties drew support from partic-ular areas dominated by specific ethnicgroups that were mobilized along tribal linesby individual leaders on the basis of theirpast, present, and future promises of deliver-ing more political patronage. It was such a splintering of the political elite—encouragedenthusiastically by the then-ruling party—that characterized politics between 1992 and2002. The unification of the oppositionbehind Mwai Kibaki and under the NARCbanner managed to push KANU out of power, but that unity was temporary. As the disagreements within the coalitiondeepened, some members of the leadershipwanted to preserve NARC as one politicalentity. They argued that since NARC hadcontested the election as a single party, itshould remain together and be furtherstrengthened. Others argued that the NARCcoalition had come together to removeKANU from power. Now that KANU hadbeen defeated, there was no need for NARC’sunity to continue.The first, “centralizing” group of leadersharked back to the era of the 1960s and 70s,when the Kenyan economy grew under theauthoritarian rule of President Jomo Kenyatta.Their view was based on an implicit, and ulti-mately destructive, notion that Kenyatta’sKikuyu tribe and the associated communitiespossessed the capacity to get the economy mov-ing again after a period of prolonged incompe-tence, looting, and resulting stagnation. Thatimplicit organizing idea around which many members of the ruling elite coalesced manifest-ed itself in a number of ways, including, forexample, with regard to early appointments of senior public officials, including myself.More destructively, it manifested itself inthe arrogance of those who believed that theKikuyu tribe would produce economicgrowth and be allowed some “excesses” inreturn. That was a model that was reasonably successful during the Cold War and had only started to falter in the mid 1980s, when theMoi regime consolidated. By 2004, it beganto look as though the state was dominated by “Cold Warriors” seeking to impose their1970s political ideals on the new realitiesaround them.
 Young People AreChanging Africa
But the Cold War had ended. Young peo-ple—influenced by television, radio, theInternet, and mobile phones—who now makeup a majority of the population, do notremember Jomo Kenyatta—except for whatthey read about him. In the cities, the younggeneration speaks its own language, “Sheng,”which is a combination of English andKiswahili. They are less deferential towardtheir leaders than their parents were. They arebetter educated and more exposed to theworld than any preceding generation. Thereare both negative and positive aspects of thosedevelopments. These changes hold true—in varying degrees—for the whole of Africa.Moreover, the relevance of Africa’s formerdevelopment partners and of foreign aid hasdeclined since the end of the Cold War. Thatwas in part the result of the West’s disengage-ment from directly supporting the corruptcentral government and its support for civilsociety in the 1980s and 1990s. Other factorsleading to the decline of Western influence in Africa included reduction of the government’scapacity to absorb aid, improved tax collectionthat decreased Africa’s reliance on foreign aid,and the rise of political correctness that saw conditional lending as “imperialistic.”The 1990s saw an unleashing of many free-doms, which changed the way in which Africans see themselves. In particular, thereemerged a more confident urban population,which, while acknowledging the shortcom-ings of life in Africa, also feels an affinity withurban young around the world. That is espe-cially true with respect to access to informa-tion, for technological interconnectedness hasheightened expectations among the young.Today, African governments have to be sensi-tive to those expectations or risk political
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Technologicalinterconnected-ness has height-ened expectationsamong the young.
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