Monday, October 1
Politics is a huge thing in Kenya at the moment because within the next 2 months a new president of Kenya is going to be elected. I am so much more up on the news here than I ever am in the US. I watch it each night in both Kiswahili and English. Each morning the headlines in the paper are always about the race. Mwai Kibaki, the current president is running for a second term with the Party for National Unity, while his opposition, Raila Odinga, is with the Orange Democratic Party. There are other candidates running too, but they’re the main ones. It’s so cool being in Nairobi, the center of it all and not experiencing it at a distance the way it is in the US. Our house is just across the street from Uhuru Park which is where all the political rallies take place, so we hear whenever there’s something going on there, and then see it on the news that evening. Yesterday morning a big caravan went by with Kibaki on it giving a speech from the top of a van. Later more trucks drove by with people singing reggae music about the praises of Kibaki. All the city is abuzz with all the latest election news every day.
It’s so interesting watching the election process unfold in a “developing country.” It’s similar in a lot of ways to the way it works in the US, but a lot of things are different as well. Basically, it’s a lot less formalized than the US. The candidates didn’t even declare they were running until a few weeks ago. Actually Kibaki just officially announced his campaign this past Saturday, while Odinga’s campaign launch is set for this coming Saturday. An interesting thing about this is that both of their campaign launches were supposed to be last week, but mysteriously Odinga’s got cancelled at the last minute. Very fishy. Another difference between the two is the way the youth get out and riot all the time at the rallies. Riots occur all the time about stuff like this, especially during elections. This is also the reason why our classes aren’t with other Kenyan students at the UoN. More so in the past than now, the university used to go on strike about various things and the students would take to the streets and riot. This could easily cancel classes for a month or so, which, if we were in those classes, would totally screw up our program. Anyway, it’s exciting and I’m eager to see how it all works out. (I think I’m for Raila although I’m not super certain about that.) Kenya got independence from Britian in 1963 and after that Jomo Kenyatta was the first president. The country really seemed to be on the right track to getting itself out of all the crap colonization left it with as best as it can. Then Moi became president and I guess he was ok at first, but then became like a dictator and ruled for 24 years and every single Kenyan I’ve talked to says he is a huge part of the reason for all the bad things here, mainly the corruption in the government became rampant because of him, and that corruption causes a lot of the other problems this country faces. I get the impression that the country just went completely downhill from anything Kenyatta helped it do when Moi was in power. The presidential power here is kind of an unchecked power and people here revere the president as a god, above the law. (in fact I’ll get arrested if I urinate in the presence of the president’s picture!) It’s kind of a blind trust in the president-much of it brought on by British colonization….which by the way, messed up this country so good. Nearly all the obstacles to the problems here are related in some way to European colonization. Anyway, then they finally got rid of Moi and Kibaki was elected in 2002 and he seems like he’s done his best to help out. It’s so hard to figure out whether candidates are good though, because when you talk to many Kenyans, much of it revolves around what tribe people are a part of and many tend to have loyalty only to their tribe regardless of a candidate’s political positions. (Another result of colonization, when the British did their best to pit the tribes against each other so that they would fight amongst themselves rather than unify against the British). Anyhow, I have yet to figure out the real story about each of these candidates. It's always a good conversation topic though.
Politics is a huge thing in Kenya at the moment because within the next 2 months a new president of Kenya is going to be elected. I am so much more up on the news here than I ever am in the US. I watch it each night in both Kiswahili and English. Each morning the headlines in the paper are always about the race. Mwai Kibaki, the current president is running for a second term with the Party for National Unity, while his opposition, Raila Odinga, is with the Orange Democratic Party. There are other candidates running too, but they’re the main ones. It’s so cool being in Nairobi, the center of it all and not experiencing it at a distance the way it is in the US. Our house is just across the street from Uhuru Park which is where all the political rallies take place, so we hear whenever there’s something going on there, and then see it on the news that evening. Yesterday morning a big caravan went by with Kibaki on it giving a speech from the top of a van. Later more trucks drove by with people singing reggae music about the praises of Kibaki. All the city is abuzz with all the latest election news every day.
It’s so interesting watching the election process unfold in a “developing country.” It’s similar in a lot of ways to the way it works in the US, but a lot of things are different as well. Basically, it’s a lot less formalized than the US. The candidates didn’t even declare they were running until a few weeks ago. Actually Kibaki just officially announced his campaign this past Saturday, while Odinga’s campaign launch is set for this coming Saturday. An interesting thing about this is that both of their campaign launches were supposed to be last week, but mysteriously Odinga’s got cancelled at the last minute. Very fishy. Another difference between the two is the way the youth get out and riot all the time at the rallies. Riots occur all the time about stuff like this, especially during elections. This is also the reason why our classes aren’t with other Kenyan students at the UoN. More so in the past than now, the university used to go on strike about various things and the students would take to the streets and riot. This could easily cancel classes for a month or so, which, if we were in those classes, would totally screw up our program. Anyway, it’s exciting and I’m eager to see how it all works out. (I think I’m for Raila although I’m not super certain about that.) Kenya got independence from Britian in 1963 and after that Jomo Kenyatta was the first president. The country really seemed to be on the right track to getting itself out of all the crap colonization left it with as best as it can. Then Moi became president and I guess he was ok at first, but then became like a dictator and ruled for 24 years and every single Kenyan I’ve talked to says he is a huge part of the reason for all the bad things here, mainly the corruption in the government became rampant because of him, and that corruption causes a lot of the other problems this country faces. I get the impression that the country just went completely downhill from anything Kenyatta helped it do when Moi was in power. The presidential power here is kind of an unchecked power and people here revere the president as a god, above the law. (in fact I’ll get arrested if I urinate in the presence of the president’s picture!) It’s kind of a blind trust in the president-much of it brought on by British colonization….which by the way, messed up this country so good. Nearly all the obstacles to the problems here are related in some way to European colonization. Anyway, then they finally got rid of Moi and Kibaki was elected in 2002 and he seems like he’s done his best to help out. It’s so hard to figure out whether candidates are good though, because when you talk to many Kenyans, much of it revolves around what tribe people are a part of and many tend to have loyalty only to their tribe regardless of a candidate’s political positions. (Another result of colonization, when the British did their best to pit the tribes against each other so that they would fight amongst themselves rather than unify against the British). Anyhow, I have yet to figure out the real story about each of these candidates. It's always a good conversation topic though.
No comments:
Post a Comment