John Stanley Njoroge Michuki had a hero’s send-off in his native Kangema constituency on 28 February, testimony that the idea of the Big Man is alive and well in Kenya.
The ICC is forcing the elite to rethink the old certainties of ethnic politics and redraw the battle lines
By approving the indictment of four very important people, the International Criminal Court has begun to unravel Kenya’s ruling networks of ethnic patronage. This is happening just...
Rival politicians in the power-sharing government are battling for votes but have failed to deliver on their promises of land reform
The grand coalition staggers on, costly and unwieldy. All the top politicians and most of the contenders for the presidential election due in December 2012 are part of it, so it is...
For a decade, President Mwai Kibaki’s government has focused on growth and efficiency, and it has largely achieved its goals. Yet as Kibaki faces his final year in office, people a...
Vol 5 (AAC) No 11 |
- KENYA
- CHINA
Kenyan politicians are battling over the controversial award of a contract for a coal mine in Eastern Province by the Energy Ministry to a little-known Chinese company. Water Min...
Vice-President, Kenya
In Beijing in late May, Kenyan Vice-President Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka called for more investment in services. Vice-President Xi Jinping, who is likely to become China’s next leader...
Conflict between the Sudans, lack of consultation with local people and regional politics could undermine the massive project
As the conflict between the two Sudans escalates, plans continue for the oil pipeline and new port at Lamu. Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corporation, the leading investor and the first co...
Vol 5 (AAC) No 2 |
- KENYA
- ASIA
Kenya’s coalition government wants to start a monumental infrastructure project but is having trouble coming up with the funds
The Nairobi government is rallying its Asian partners behind the new Lamu port and associated road and railway projects that will link the Kenyan coast to South Sudan and Ethiopia....
Vol 52 No 24 |
- KENYA
- SOMALIA
The war in Somalia gives President Mwai Kibaki’s government a leading role for which it looks ill-prepared
Six weeks into the fighting, unintended consequences haunt Kenya’s invasion of Somalia: rising xenophobia, terrorist attacks in Nairobi and other local insecurity, and changes in E...
Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia is less than a month old but is already the subject of contradictory statements by the government and its Western allies. Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen is under threat from the Kenya Armed Forces and their allies’ Special Forces and air power but the invasion also offers opportunities. Al Shabaab may be able to recoup some recent losses if Lower and Middle Juba end up controlled by Kenyan surrogate forces that alienate local people. The offensive shows, however, that the United States and its allies have faith in a military solution to the Somali problem. Kenyan forces are pushing towards Kismayo in a land assault that will combine with attacks by French and US forces from the sea to spell possible defeat for Al Shabaab in the key port. Yet with no political solution on offer, Al Shabaab could revive.
Kenya’s intervention in Somalia was first announced on 15 October by Minister of Internal Security George Kinuthia Saitoti and Minister of Defence Mohamed Yusuf Haji, and it was o...