87 - Identity Politics Persist in Africa, as in the Americas
“Gratitude goes to the millions of Kenyans who refused to be boxed into tribal cocoons,” incoming Kenyan President William Ruto told his followers Monday night after the country’s electoral commission chairman confirmed his narrow victory over former prime minister Raila Odinga. We sold “our programmes…our agenda.” He proclaimed. But the electoral results point in very different direction; in Kenya, as in most of Africa, much of Europe, and the United States, identity political loyalties still prevail.
Odinga, like his father Oginga Odinga before him, has been trying to elevate his fellow Luo people of western Kenya into a position of national decision-making authority despite the reality that in population they are only the fourth largest among numerous Kenyan ethnic entities. The Kikuyu are the most populous by far of Kenya’s peoples, and their leader Jomo Kenyatta became the nation’s first president; his son Uhuhu Kenyatta is just completing two terms as president, with Ruto as deputy-president. President Mwai Kibaki, the country’s third president, was also Kikuyu. In between the first Kenyatta and Kibaki, Daniel arap Moi, Jomo Kenyatta’s deputy-president and a confirmed autocrat ruled from 1978 to 2002; he belonged to one the many Kalenjin sub-groups. Ruto worked with Moi.
Ruto, 55, has a thuggish background, having been accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) along with Uhuru Kenyatta of fomenting vicious violence in the aftermath of the 2007 election (when Kibaki triumphed over Raila Odinga). The ICC also alleges that he so intimidated potential witnesses that the ICC had to drop its attempt in 2016 to prosecute. Ruto, poor growing up, has become immensely rich during his deputy-presidency, a testimony to kleptocracy. During the presidential campaign, Ruto proclaimed Kenya a “hustler” nation, and said he was going to champion those of his countrymen who “hustled.”
In this election, Uhuru Kenyatta decided late in the day to endorse Raila Odinga rather than Ruto. But Kikuyu paid no heed, evidently refusing to support a Luo – their long time political and economic rivals. Ruto won 50.49 percent of the total vote, Odinga only 48.85 percent, with minor candidates taking the remainder. We do not yet know precise ethnic (or urban versus rural) voting totals, but it is evident that Uhuru Kenyatta’s backing failed to translate into balloting support for Odinga. Ethnic enmities were and are too strong. Their rivalry stems from the earliest years of Kenyan independence. Tom Mboya, a charismatic young Luo politician, helped to spring Jomo Kenyatta from what amounted to prison in a remote rural part of Kenya; he was later assassinated.
Kenya is a country of 49 million disparate peoples: nomads, grazers, farmers, and so on. Numerically in between Kikuyu and Luo are the Luhya, also from western Kenya but of different linguistic and ancestral origins. The Kalenjin, Ruto’s ethnic kin, and a designation combining a number of sub-ethnicities, mainly in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Are third ranking numerically. Traditionally, the Kalenjin were pastoralists, and the Kikuyu were cultivators of the highlands surrounding Mt. Kenya. The Luo traditionally fished in the waters of Lake Victoria. The Kikuyu and Luhya languages are of Bantu origin (the largest conglomeration, spreading south to the tip of the continent from West Africa and East Africa.) The Luo and Kalenjin languages belong to another cluster called Nilo-Saharan, commonly called Southern Nilotic.
Ruto may believe that his triumph at the polls has ushered in a period of national harmony, where ethnicity matters less than it once did, but even in one of Africa’s more modern and prosperous countries, that is hardly so. Only 65 percent of Kenyans voted, compared to 80 percent in 2017, suggesting that many Kenyans, especially the numerous Kikuyu, refused to choose either candidate. Second, anecdotal reports from polling stations in the Central Highlands, where Kikuyu predominate, indicate unusually low turnouts there.
Raila Odinga, 77, has not accepted the vote result, and promises to contest the outcome in the courts. Four of the seven electoral commissioners, all appointed by Kenyatta, also refused to endorse the official outcome. In 2017, the Kenyan courts threw out the official results and demanded an electoral re-run, which Uhuru Kenyatta won. (This constitutes Odinga’s fifth loss in a presidential campaign, a clear rejection of Luo ambitions.)
Of Africa’s larger and more prosperous nations, in recent years only Zambia has rejected hitherto sacrosanct ethnic voting preferences. South Africa is struggling with similar issues now, and Nigeria’s presidential election next year will indicate whether national concerns can overcome traditional religious and ethnic patterns. Africa, like North America, remains imprisoned by primordial priorities.
Another version of this post appears today in the Globe & Mail, Toronto