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Feature - Country set for historic elections

Kenyans are set to go to polls on Friday to elect a new government. The historic poll, which is expected to mark the end of President Daniel arap Moi's 24-year rule, will also be the first to usher an incumbent president into retirement. Media reports indicate that the prerequisites for the elections, such as the buying of ballot boxes, printing of voters cards and the setting up of polling stations, have been put in place as political parties mount last-minute campaigns around the country. However, there are heightened fears of vote rigging and deep concerns over the political violence which has rocked many parts of the country in the past few weeks. In the past week alone, two local politicians have reportedly been murdered in separate incidents in western Kenya. Local media organisations on Monday reported seven members of a Kenya African National Union (KANU - ruling party) civic candidate's family, including her husband, killed when unknown people set fire to the timber house they were sleeping in. Scores of others have been injured in violence elsewhere. There have been, moreover, allegations of vote-buying and other election malpractices. Opposition leaders have blamed the electoral commission and its chairman, Samuel Kivuitu, of introducing last-minute rules in the voting procedures to create confusion which would help KANU rig the elections. EU representatives who arrived in the country to observe the election have already voiced concerns over such hitches, which, they say, could spoil the chances of a free and fair elections and allow for rigging. "We are also concerned about quite a lot of violence in different parts of the country. And I understand that we have a number of examples where voting cards have been bought, which is, of course, not according to the law," Anders Rickman, the head of the EU election observer mission, told the independent Kenya Television Network. "We also know that in some rural areas people have been given money, and obviously in order to vote for a certain candidate, and that is also against the law." Religious leaders too have expressed fears of political violence, and appealed to political parties and their supporters to show a high degree of "political maturity" and tolerance during their campaigns. In a statement released on Tuesday, the National Council of Churches of Kenya and the Kenya Episcopal Conference Commission for Justice and Peace called on civil servants to be non-partisan in carrying out their duties during the election. "While public servants have a right to choose, belong [to] and associate with political parties of their choice, they are, however, bound by their professional ethics and code of conduct to remain visibly impartial during the electioneering period," they said in their statement. This week's elections are expected to be the first to result in an opposition party victory and the removal of KANU, which has ruled the country since independence in 1963, from power. Recent opinion polls published in the local media have suggested that Mwai Kibaki, the National Rainbow Coalition presidential candidate, is set to garner as much as 68.2 per cent of the total votes cast. KANU's Uhuru Kenyatta, his closest rival, is expected to garner about 21.7. Critics argue that Kenyatta, Moi's preferred successor, who is also a son of Kenya's founding president, the late Jomo Kenyatta, is a political novice who would only serve to ensure that Moi continued to rule the country by proxy. Moi, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third five-year term under a multiparty law introduced in the country in 1992, leaves behind a mixed legacy. His critics say he has failed to clamp down on high-level corruption, which has contributed to the collapse of the country's economy. According to a local economist, Moi leaves behind a "terribly" neglected economy, which needs radical changes if the new government is to succeed in reviving it. Gerishon Ikiara, a lecturer at the University of Nairobi, the country's foremost academic institution, told IRIN that, compared with Kenyatta's 15 year rule, Moi's period in office had been characterised by unacceptably high levels of unemployment and poor production. According to Ikiara, unemployment levels in Kenya are now at their highest - 25 percent - while agricultural production has dropped to half the level obtained under the previous government. "It is clear that this week's elections will be a watershed in many ways, especially economically. The economy has performed very badly. It is a sort of shadow economy of the previous regime," Ikiara told IRIN. "People expect a new government to focus on the economy. This will require tackling the issue of corruption, otherwise donors will not come back. They seem eager to come back to the country if key conditionalities are met," he said. The IMF and the World Bank suspended aid to Kenya in late 2000 because of the government’s failure to fulfil promises on tackling corruption and privatising the economy, which at the time was experiencing its worst recession since independence in 1963, and last year actually shrank by 0.3 percent. Moi's supporters, however, credit him with successfully steering a relatively peaceful country in the particularly turbulent East African region. However, his decision to declare his own successor within KANU this year caused a rift within the party, with some prominent party members decamping to the opposition. Moi struck a surprise conciliatory note during the country's independence day celebrations on 12 December, and asked Kenyans to "forgive" him for the wrongs that he might have committed during his 24 years of leadership, saying he wanted to leave behind a united and peaceful country when he retired.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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