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Political Parties

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto launched their new Jubilee party, with the addition of 11 other parties. The announcement 10 September 2016 came less than a year before the presidential election. Kenyatta emphasized togetherness as the main reason for the merger, saying, "the party we launch here today is an expression of our unity," and "in launching it, we renew and strengthen our ties that bind Kenyans together." But some analysts believe this announcement was more for show than for substance. Many of the 11 parties were "dormant parties" that do not have any electoral representation, even at the county level. And none of the opposition parties - such as ODM [Orange Democratic Movement], Ford-Kenya, Wiper, or Amani National Congress - joined Jubilee.

In response to London's call for representative political parties, the small groups of pastoral peoples near this economic prize joined coastal Africans who resented the Kikuyu and the Luo and formed the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU). A second party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), was organized by the Kikuyu and the Luo with help from most of the other African agriculturists and their urban brethren. Upon his release from detention, Kenyatta became KANU's leader. After a brief interval of coalition government between the two parties and development of safeguards for the European and Asian minorities, the British conceded that December 1963 was an appropriate time to relinquish their control over the East African colony.

Upholding much of the centralized control Kenyatta had demonstrated Moi resisted significant reform until 1991, when he reluctantly and under pressure agreed to move to multi-party politics. This pressure included national opposition groups and donor governments. In the elections of 1992 and 1997, Moi and the Kenya African National Union (KANU) won by small margins against opponents. Although a multi-party system existed, it did not have the rallying strength to defeat the incumbents.

In the summer of 2002, thirteen political parties came together to form the National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK). At around the same time, Moi chose as his preferred successor Uhuru Kenyatta, the politically inexperienced son of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, and Moi has been actively campaigning on Uhuru’s behalf. Moi’s choice angered some KANU ministers and, in protest, they formed a coalition within KANU known as Rainbow. Members of Rainbow had hoped that KANU’s presidential candidate would be chosen by secret ballot at the party’s nominating convention. When Moi refused to permit this, the Rainbow ministers abandoned KANU and joined the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, which merged with NAK in October 2002 to form a super-opposition alliance known as the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), with Democratic Party Chairman Mwai Kibaki as its single presidential candidate. Mwai Kibaki was elected president on a platform of constitutional reform, unification, and promised egalitarian representation.

With the advent of multi-party politics in 1992 regional conflict among tribes really became evident. Major parties were already divided along tribal lines. For example, the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD-Kenya) was associated with the Luhya tribe, the Democratic Party with the Kikuyu, the Labour Democratic party with the Luo, while the Kalenjin tribe supported KANU. Today, voting in Kenya whether parliamentary, civic or presidential, is done almost entirely along tribal lines.

There were numerous political parties. After multi-party politics came to Kenya in 1992, political parties mushroomed. By 2007 over 300 political parties were registered; 117 took part in last year's general election. Many parties were dormant between elections and emerged at election-time for the sole purpose of collecting fees (essentially bribes) from aspiring candidates in exchange for a place on the party ticket. Even well-established parties had weak institutional capacity and opaque governance practices; often they served as little more than personal vehicles for their leader.

The Societies Act under which parties previously registered provided a weak legal framework for regulating political parties and imposed few requirements for a party to continue its existence. Political parties financing was opaque and not subject to any disclosure requirements.

The absence of public party financing led many office holders to resort to corrupt public dealings to finance their political parties. The Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing scandals were, in part, driven by the need for campaign slush funds. In addition, elected officials switched parties frequently with impunity, weakening party discipline, a key to a functional parliament. Furthermore, after the failed constitutional referendum of 2005, opposition Members of Parliament joined the government in defiance of their party, blurring the lines between government and opposition.

Civil society realized that strong, transparent, and capable political parties are critical to entrenching democracy. It had been advocating, unsuccessfully, for framework legislation to regulate better political party governance and finances since the advent of multi-party politics.

The movement gained critical mass in 2005, when a number of non-governmental organizations, with US financial support, formed the Coalition for Accountable Political Financing to lobby for legislation to make more transparent the operations and financing of political parties. The resulting Political Parties Act (the Act), enacted in October 2007, was signed into law by President Kibaki in March 2008. It came into force on 01 July 2008.

On December 27, 2007, Kenyans participated in an election between incumbent President Mwai Kibaki and opposition candidate Raila Odinga. Estimates put the death toll at 1,200 and more than 500,000 people forced to leave their homes in the ensuing violence. The February 28, 2008 negotiated solution put in place a power-sharing deal between the two main parties contesting the presidential election: the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the Party of National Unity (PNU). Prime Minister Odinga and President Kibaki led the coalition government.

The Act's primary goals are to promote political parties with national outlooks and membership, with transparent internal governance structures and financing, and that hold regular and transparent intra-party elections. The Act treats political parties as quasi-public institutions; it increases record-keeping requirements for parties and mandates annual audits of party finances, which must be made public.

It forbids civil servants and army personnel from serving as founding members of parties or holding party office, as well as actively engaging in political party activity or publicly endorsing candidates. The Act also bans civil servants from political activity which gives the appearance of compromising the political neutrality of the civil servant. It addresses gender balance by requiring that each gender be represented in at least one-third of party leadership positions.

The Act imposed a number of requirements that challenged the way parties do business. Thus it posed significant challenges to even the biggest parties to ensure that they comply. For example, few parties, with the exception of the Kenyan African National Union (which built up a vast grassroots network over its twenty years of one-party-rule), had a national network of members and offices, which requires a significant investment in time and money. And, even KANU's network had weakened after it lost its grip on power in 2002.

In addition, party governance had often been weak, with de facto leaders deciding policy in place of de jure party decision-making bodies. Under the Act, subversion of de jure party bodies can easily result in a suit at the Political Parties Tribunal, which promises to provide a streamlined conflict resolution mechanism.

Parties had been used to very lax controls on their finances and a complete lack of transparency to the public. Also, many party constitutions did not contain structures that comply with the Act, forcing these parties to convene party congresses to amend constitutions and also to hold leadership elections at the national level. Also, parties needed to hold elections for leadership of district branches, which had proven a contentious and difficult process. Internal tensions within parties over the leadership requirements of the Act were rife as factions jockey for position at both the national and local levels.

The Political Parties Registrar issued certificates of registration to 38 political parties which had complied with the requirements of the Political Parties Act (the Act) before the December 31, 2008 deadline. These parties were entitled to participate fully in Kenyan politics. They werealso eligible for government financial support from the Political Parties Fund, established by the Act. the number of political parties was cut from 169 parties.

If a number of so-called briefcase parties continued to exist, the overall reduction in parties will actually benefit them because they will then be able to command increased prices for nominations. The parties that failed to comply with the requirements of the Political Parties Act are now officially defunct, though they may submit new requests for certification if they comply with the Act's requirements. However, the barriers to financial and administrative barriers to entry remain quite high and the act may hinder the registration of new parties.

In February 2013 the IEBC announced 59 political parties were formally registered. Eight parties nominated presidential candidates. The Political Parties Act set stringent conditions for political parties but did not discriminate against any particular party.

In Kenya, the politicians who emerged after the legalization of multipartyism were not driven by dreams of serving Kenyans, they are driven by avarice. Opposition politicians did not demand multipartyism out of altruism, but opportunism. The opposition parties had nothing in common except the unbridled desire to gain power. The basic problem in Kenya has not been solved, because the politicians are from the same mentally colonized elite that took over after the attainment of independence.