Kenya Suffers from State Capture
The
long and perilous journey to democracy in Kenya is characterized by tensions
and reversals. In many ways Kenya has not made any significant progress since
the early 90s despite a lot of movement. Kenya has always struggled against the
dominance of the state. The struggle over constitutional reform
is one of the windows for understanding the larger struggles confronting Kenyan
society. Since the constitution came into effect in 2010, nothing much has
happened in terms of laying the necessary infrastructure widespread enough to
guarantee the country and the people of Kenya realization of the aspirations articulated
in the national charter. The struggle for constitutional reforms in Kenya had a
long history. But even after its promulgation in August of 2010, the country
has shown again that political liberalization is a high-risk activity that can
produce unintended side-effects. Drawing on examples from other African states,
it is clear that the processes of democratization and reform can be undertaken
simultaneously, but that this twin-tracked approach requires institutional
reforms not yet undertaken by a large number of African Polities, Kenya inclusive.
The increased salience of ethnicity is better understood as the outcome of
changes in institutional context and the decision-making matrix facing
political leaders, rather than their cause. In addition to the historical roots
and the short term trigger provided by the contested election, other prior interwoven
processes contributed significantly to the Kenyan crisis that has refused to go
away: elite fragmentation, political liberalization, and state informalization.
Taken together, the mutually reinforcing processes of elite fragmentation,
political liberalization, and state informalization radically altered the
balance of power between the center and the periphery. Eve with a new constitution
in place, Kenya still struggles with and suffers from executive control over
coercive institutions
that protect those at the core to the exclusion of those in the periphery,
resulting in a an overprotected insiders and under-protected outsiders. The state
has continued to lay an overbearing burden on the shoulders of the people of
Kenya thereby arousing the appetite for a heated struggle for the country to
undertake the desired institutional reforms. But the state is hijacked since
the self-same political elite who are overprotected by the state are the same
people expected or at least, in positions to lead the reforms process. The
people are lost in this whole business. Nothing in Kenya today is
people-centered; the state works for the rich and powerful who illegitimately
control state power.
Kenya Suffers from State Capture
Reviewed by Ibrahim Magara
on
February 08, 2017
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