On 27 December, Kenya had a chance to “set an example” for Africa and hold fair elections, says The Economist. “But the country blew it.” Results were suspiciously delayed when opposition leader Raila Odinga was ahead, the outcome in many areas was different when announced nationally than locally, while one borough boasted a turnout of 115%. As chief EU monitor Alexander Graf Lambsdorff put it to Reuters, “The tallying process lacks credibility”.
The mayhem that ensued has seen more than 250,000 people displaced, says the Red Cross. More than 500 are thought to have been killed as tribal divisions erupt in the worst violence seen since independence in 1964. Worse still, the crisis could hurt the whole region. As well as being east Africa’s largest economy, Kenya is home to its biggest port, making it a vital transport hub. Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, among others, all depend on Kenya to shift their exports and access imports, but since the start of the crisis, hauliers have found moving goods through Kenya increasingly difficult.
For example, Eldoret, the town in western Kenya where more than 30 people were burned to death in a church, is also home to an enormous refinery, on which most of the region depends for its oil. “We are very, very concerned,” Robina Rubimbwa, spokeswoman for Uganda’s finance ministry tells the FT. “On Sunday we received 300,000 litres of diesel and 100,000 of petrol, but we need one million litres of diesel and 300,000 of petrol per day.” As a result, fuel prices in the country have already doubled, and there are fears food prices will rise too.
Yet only a few weeks ago, with the US subprime crisis brewing, “Africa was being viewed by some investors as a relatively safe bet for the first time in recent decades”, says Peter Apps on Reuters Alertnet. Now that optimism is waning. “So it is easy to be angry, as well as gloomy, about African leaders’ continual betrayal of the democratic values they say they hold so dear,” adds The Economist.
But let’s not arrogantly patronise Africa, says Richard Dowden in The Observer. “Britain did little between elections to push for a fully independent electoral commission. Instead, it poured aid into Kenya, even after members of the Moi and Kibaki governments were seen stealing hundreds of millions of pounds… You do not, it seems, need to understand the poor in order to save them.”