Two Kenyas

One tribe, the Kikuyu, supports President Mwai Kibaki. Another, the Luos, supports opposition leader Raila Odinga. After co-existing for decades - albeit with the Kikuyu holding more power - the country's disputed election is tearing them apart:

With the death toll from post-election violence surpassing 100 and riots continuing in many parts of Kenya, an uncomfortable tension settled Monday over a struggling, melting-pot settlement called Kangeme, a densely populated sprawl of corrugated steel shacks.

A day after President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of a second term, people who have lived as neighbors for decades in the Nairobi enclave began speaking of two Kenyas, one for the Kikuyu, Kibaki's tribe, and one for Luos and other ethnic groups loyal to opposition leader Raila Odinga, who says the vote was rigged.

Along Kangeme's bustling, muddy streets, a question lingered: whether Kenya, long an island of relative calm in volatile East Africa, would erupt into all-out ethnic war or hobble along on the strength of ties formed in places like this, where Kikuyus, Luos and members of other ethnic groups have shopped at one another's markets, lent one another money and even intermarried.

[...]

The charges have been heightened by an undercurrent of tribalism that ran through the election from the start. Odinga's supporters accused Kibaki of favoring his Kikuyu community, which is the largest tribe in Kenya and has dominated politics and power structures here since the country gained independence from Britain in 1963.

At the same time, there was a prevailing sense among Odinga's supporters that his time -- and by extension, their own -- had come. Odinga had been leading by a large margin that vanished on Sunday as returns poured in for Kibaki in tallies that international observers have called into question.

"They got power at independence and now they don't want to relinquish it," said Martin Makokha, 30, a grocery clerk who is not Kikuyu, but said he voted for Kibaki in 2002 with high hopes. "We feel the Kikuyu have betrayed us. Very much."

A big roundup of Kenyan blogosphere reaction can be found here (via Andrew Sullivan).

Damian P.

Posted by damian at January 1, 2008 09:31 PM