CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Official Moguls 171
deteriorated into a factional scramble to tap presidential power and
prestige for enrichment and political advantage. By the time of
Kenyatta’s death in 1978 the nation was governed by a presidential but
largely authoritarian regime (Nyong’o, 1989: 231).
Moi, Kenyatta’s successor, initially released some political prisoners
and presided over a degree of political decompression (for early optimism
see Berg-Schlosser, 1982). But he began his move toward one-man rule
and a pervasive national personality cult after a coup attempt in 1982.
Moi’s Kenya African National Union party (KANU) was unopposed
from 1969 through 1992 (Ross, 1992: 425); in 1987 it did away with
secret ballots in parliamentary elections. KANU and Moi’s personal
networks were sustained by a powerful and pervasive system of patronage
distributing jobs, administrative decisions, and money (Human Rights
Watch, 2002: 4), often in such a way as to intensify tribal and ethnic
divisions. Where carrots failed there were always sticks at hand: persistent
critics were subject to repression and violence. In 1990 Foreign Minister
Robert Ouko, a vocal opponent of corruption in Moi’s government, was
murdered (Ross, 1992: 434). That crime was eventually traced to some of
Moi’s personal cronies, and had severe effects upon incoming aid, trade,
and investment (East African Standard, 2003a). International pressure
led Moi to agree in late 1991 to constitutional changes allowing the
existence of other parties and competitive elections. But by then, a legacy
of one-man rule, thinly veiled by democratic and nationalistic rhetoric,
was firmly in place (Ross, 1992: 440).
The opposition that emerged in 1992 and again in 1997 was divided
among forty or more parties and as many tribal groups (Human Rights
Watch, 2002: 4). Its campaign and candidates were denied full press
coverage, particularly outside the capital city of Nairobi. Election procedures,
while reformed somewhat during the 1990s, were still marred by
fraud, vote-buying, and a degree of violence, and produced shaky mandates:
Moi’s victory in 1992 for example, came with only 36 percent of the
vote in a four-way race (Holmquist, Weaver, and Ford, 1994: 69). The
judiciary was corrupt, intimidated, and demoralized; victims of human
rights abuses, illegal land seizures, and corruption have had little success
in seeking legal remedies or compensation.
Under the elections agreement reached in the early 1990s Moi was
obliged to step down after two five-year elected terms, and in December,
2002, Kenya had its most competitive presidential election to date. The
victory of Mwai Kibaki, candidate of the opposition National Rainbow
Coalition (NARC), over Uhuru Kenyatta – Jomo Kenyatta’s politically
inexperienced son, and Moi’s hand-picked choice as successor – was
decisive, by a margin of 63 to 30 percent (World Factbook Online,