Nyang’oro, Julius E. (1990) “The quest for pluralist democracy in Kenya” in Transafrica Forum: A Quarterly Journal of Opinion on Africa and the Caribbean v. 7, no. 3. pages 73-82.
Starts with riots in Nairobi (and eventually Nakuru, Nyeri, and elsewhere) over four days in support of Matiba’s and Rubia’s request for a multiparty demonstration at Kamukunji Grounds – denied by Moi’s government.
Matiba and Rubia arrested.
Julius points out that perspectives that saw Kenyatta’s government as “a fairly open political system was grossly deceiving.” (p. 74). Stalwarts from pre-independence days (Odinga, and others) had left KANU by 1966 – a scant two+ years after independence – to form KPU (Kenya People’s Union). KPU would be proscribed by 1969, its leadership long harassed and some arrested and detained without trial.
1982 Air Force coup attempt – failed, but laid groundwork for Moi to bring his team into power (he had been somewhat reliant on Kenyatta’s advisors for years) – more Kalenjins, fewer other ethnic groups represented. As Julius says, page 75: “In effect, this is a reenactment of the Kenyatta era except that the favored ethnic groups are different.”
Robert Ouko’s murder is described – he had gained too much prestige international and domestically – he was a fluid speaker and thinker who outshone Moi in terms of assuaging Westerners about what was going on in Kenya. Julius links the killing of Ouko with Kenya’s single-party state orientation, with events beginning to fully blossom in East Europe, events that would lead to the Berlin Wall coming down.
Julius also mentions that by the time of the Matiba and Rubia arrests, Nyerere was publicly speaking about the possibility that Tanzania would give up single-party governance. Nyerere was no longer President, but he still led CCM. Omar Bongo (Gabon) and Houphouet-Boigny (Cote D’Ivoire) were also discussing an opening away from single-party rule in their countries by this time.
p. 77: “In essence, President Moi is suggesting that Kenya’s political maturity was further behind (for example) than that of Tanzania or other countries whose leadership had acknowledged the need for, or the possibility of, a multi-party system.”
Rationale for one-party systems in Africa – in the immediate post-colonial time frame, attention was best focused on economic development, not political squabbling.
In Kenya, as elsewhere, one-party states – assumed to be in a big enough political environment to continue to encourage debate about policy – soon gave way to a stultifying of debate, and a quashing of any outspoken resistance to policy suggestions. Suggestions become mandates in such circumstances, as all power rests with the Executive making the suggestions.
Multi-partyism is thus an attempt to expand the political space for debate within society – and so is taken as direct threat to Executive authority. Gosh, how familiar in 2007 Bush America.
To illustrate the above point, Julius describes the Anglican Church (Church of the Province of Kenya - CPK) leaders – Bishop Henry Okullu of Maseno South in Nyanza Province, and (soon-to-be late) Bishop Alexander Muge of Eldoret. Bishop Okullu would, on July 15, 1990 excoriate the government in his sermon, at which he also condemned the government’s decision to detain Matiba and Rubia without trial. The government soon began going after Bishop Okullu.
p. 80: “What is significant about the reaction of the MPs and Cabinet Ministers to Bishop Okullu’s call for dialogue is the recklessness with which suggestions to detain the Bishop were made. Indeed the call for his detention made his point more eloquent than anyone could anticipate: a difference of opinion in Kenya today could be the difference between staying in or out of detention.”