Info on the Republic of Kenya

Geography

Kenya lies across the equator on Africa’s east coast, bordering the Indian Ocean in the southeast.  Its total area of 582,650 square kilometers includes 13,400 square kilometers of water, mainly in Lake Turkana and Kenya’s portion of Lake Victoria, which it shares with neighboring Uganda and Tanzania.  Kenya’s land boundaries total 3,477 kilometers.  It shares a border with Ethiopia (861 kilometers) and Sudan (232 kilometers) in the north, Somalia (682 kilometers) in the east, Tanzania (769 kilometers) in the southwest and Uganda (933 kilometres) in the west.  The Rift Valley and Central Highlands form the backbone of the country.

Society

In 2007 Kenya’s population was estimated at 36,913,721, up from 28.7 million reported in the 1999 national census, and from 15.3 million in the 1979 census.  In 2006 the annual population growth rate was about 2.8 percent, a rate substantially below that of the early 1980s, when Kenya’s growth reached four percent, the highest rate in the world.  Kenya consists of more than 40 ethnic groups, which belong to three different linguistic groups:  Nilotic, Cushitic and Bantu.  The Bantu speaking Kikuyu are the biggest ethnic group, making up 18.3% of the population, followed by the Luhya, who also speak Bantu (14%), the Nilotic speaking Kalenjin (12%) and Luo (10.7%) and the Bantu speaking Kamba (10.2%).  Since the end of 2006, some 220,000 refugees from neighboring countries have sought refuge in Kenya, including 162,000 from Somalia and many from Sudan.  More than a third of Kenya’s population lives in urban areas, with the greatest concentration in Nairobi.

Political situation

Kenya has a presidential system, with the president being head of State and the government.  Since independence in 1963, the country has conducted periodic elections. Five of the nine elections held so far were under a de facto or de jure one-party system (between 1968 and 1991).

The 2007 general elections will be the fourth multi-party elections in a row since the return to a multi-party system in December 1991.  In contrast to many countries in the wider East African and Great Lakes Region, and despite one quickly aborted coup attempt in 1982, Kenya has been considered politically stable with only three Presidents since independence in 1963:  Jomo Kenyatta (1963-1978), Daniel arap Moi (1978-2002) and Mwai Kibaki (since 2002).

In 2002 the KANU government, which had been in power since independence, lost the elections to the newly founded National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), led by former Vice President Mwai Kibaki (1978-1988).  Kibaki scored 61% of the vote and NARC secured 125 out of the 210 contested parliamentary seats.  The then incumbent president Daniel arap Moi of KANU did not contest the 2002 elections as he had concluded his second, and constitutionally final, term in the multiparty era.  KANU’s presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta, son of founding father Jomo Kenyatta, conceded defeat. The country experienced the first ever change of government through an election.  This strongly boosted Kenyans’ trust in democratic institutions.

The elections were nationally and internationally hailed as a major step towards the consolidation of democracy in Kenya and as a benchmark for elections in the wider East African region.

The NARC coalition broke up over disagreements on the constitutional reform process.  A group around cabinet ministers Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka founded the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and campaigned in the referendum in November 2005 against the draft constitution of the government, as they considered the reforms not comprehensive enough.  ODM won the referendum and the Kibaki government accepted defeat.

Today, political parties in Kenya centre around personalities and are widely organized along ethnic lines.  The party landscape remains fluid and new parties and party coalitions are founded as considered strategically and tactically fit.  As in previous elections, the parties contesting the 2007 elections are broad coalitions of regional political leaders and their followers.

Economic Situation

Kenya is one of the best developed countries in East Africa.  Since 2004 it has recorded strong GDP growth rates of above 5%.  Agriculture, which accounts for around 25% of the GDP, is still the driving force of economic growth for most other sectors of the economy.  However, other sectors less dependent on agriculture, like tourism, construction and building, and transport and communication, contributed strongly to the overall growth of the economy.  Under the current government a socio-economic recovery has begun after almost two decades of very low economic growth, major corruption scandals and a dilapidated infrastructure.  This - according to World Bank figures – also led to an increase in the incidence of poverty from 48.8% in 1990 to 55.4% in 2001.  Current government statistics now put the overall poverty at 46%, a figure that has been disputed by opposition politicians.  Life expectancy has fallen from 57.1 in 1990 to 48 in 2005 according to UNICEF, mainly due to the impact of Aids.  UNDP came to the conclusion that Kenya is likely to miss the core aim of the Millennium Development Goals to halve the incidence of extreme poverty by 2015.  In addition, Kenya is one of the most unequal societies in the world, with the richest top 20% having a share in income or consumption of  51.2% of the total.

The introduction of free primary education by the current government has been widely considered a success and led to an increase in enrolment rates.  However, the fight against corruption has been less successful.  The government did introduce the position of permanent secretary for ethics in the office of the President, with responsibility for the overall co-ordination of fighting corruption, but a lack of political backing led former TI-Kenya chairman John Githongo to resign from this post in 2005.  The circulation of a dossier on the involvement of senior government Ministers in a scandal about the production of ID cards also led to problems for the government.  Several lost their cabinet positions, although three were later reinstated.