Kenyan Struggle for Democracy and Capital Development

Country Kenya is in east Africa and was part of former British East Africa but wanted freedom from the British. Kenya got its independence from the British by 12 December 1963 and was led by the Jomo Kenyatta who later became the first president of Kenya. After the death of Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Moi became the president and Kenya was under a one-party rule and was an authoritarian state from 1969 to 1991 until Daniel MOI was under internal and external pressure from the Kenya’s and the international committee to make Kenya a democratic and liberal state and in 1992 Daniel Moi allowed the first election, which his party won and he was in power until 2002 when he stepped down. Kenya is now a presidential republic with 47 administrative counties.

The chief of state and head of government is the president Uhuru Kenyatta; however, Kenya also has a Deputy president William Ruto. Kenya has a bicameral parliament which has the senates with elected senators, (smaller house) and the national assembly with elected members of parliament (lager house). Kenya is a unitary system and the head and chief of state is the president. The president has a deputy president that has as much power as the president gives and both the president and vice president are elected based on the public popular vote, while the senate and national assembly are elected both based on the number of votes each party gets (Central intelligence agency, 2018).

Kenya is a Less developed county, because It has a “low levels of per capita income, high inflation and debt, large trade deficits, low levels of socioeconomic development, a lack of industrialization” (MacLean and Wood, p. 266, 2010). The description from Maclean and Woods clearly shows that Kenya falls in to the LDCs. Also, the Human development Index which measures life expectancy, and literacy levels show how developed individuals are in the country, that is used by the United nation development program to rank countries in the world from very developed countries e.g. Norway to developing countries e.g. Kenya. According to the United Nation Development Program (2018) Kenya’s human development index rank in the world is 142.

Also, according to the Transpiracy International (2018) Kenya’s Score on Corruption is 28/100, 0 is very corrupt and 100 is clean and this is not surprising for a less developed country. Also, Kenya’s Ranking among other nations is 143/180 mean out of all the other 180 countries Kenya is ranked in the lowest 40 countries. This means that the government may face some challenges in allocating the resources to areas that need it the most. According to the United Nation Development Program (2018) Kenya’s GDP per capital $2,961 which is much lower than develop states such as the United states with a $54,941 per capita, also the expected year of schooling in Kenya is 12.1 years which is means that schooling for most people stops at secondary school, this also shows that there are very few skilled works and this can have a huge impact on the economy, because the people of Kenya do not have the tools and facilities to develop themselves further which should be provided by the government.

Kenya is a country that strives for agriculture and nearly 75% of its population takes part in some form of agricultural work part-time or fool time, the agriculture of the county contributes to one-third of the country’s GDP (Central Intelligence agency, 2018). Kenya is also depending on its tourism which is a strong part of its economy which the government has played a massive role in building (Akama, 2002), the Kenyan government had to develop its tourism, because after it gained its independence it was mostly relying on its agricultural exports which are mostly tea and coffee, however, when there was a fall in the prices of agriculture in the global market, the government turned to an abundant resource that it has which is a tourism and developed it to make it marketable which will boost its economy by encouraging foreign investment and creation of jobs ( Akama, 2002). The government’s role in the creation of the tourism sector was important.

However, the success of the tourism sector is because the government did not want to have a major role in the sector but allow the sector to be run by the freehand and allow foreign investment. However, Kenya Suffers from a lack of governance, corruption, and poor infrastructures. The levels of unemployment are said to be as high as 40% of the population (Central Agency Intelligence, 2018), Kenya also suffers from terrorist attacks ever since it got its independence, these attacks have had an impact on western targets such as, In 1998, “a car bomb destroyed the United States Embassy, killing 200+ Kenyans and 12 Americans and injuring thousands”( Whitaker, p. 255, 2008). This is one of the many that have occurred in the country. The terrorist attack is an attack on the countries democratic system, its link to the western world, and the spread of the western ideologies in the country.

After the independence Kenya was an authoritarian state and has struggled to become democratic and liberal, theoretically Kenya is democratic, but in reality, it is still struggling to become democratic as it should it be theoretically. Maclean and Wood (2010) define democracy as a principle for all citizens to participate in the election and have “direct and indirect participation in government institution” (p. 415, 2010). Kenya has had some problems with its election process, Kenya has multiple parties, but only 2 parties are dominant, when the elections occurs in Kenya there is a trend of violence that has persisted from the first elections in 1992 to recent elections, According to the Central intelligence agency (2018). The most severe case of violence that occurred was the 2007/8 post-election violence which was said to have a an economically stable country like Kenya to go to into flames in such short time. (kayinga, 2009).

The post-election violence of 2007/8 really showed the world how democratic Kenya really is because during elections there was a lot of instability within the government, and fraud accusations that made the election process seem irrelevant and dangerous to the electorate, this increased the probability of voter apathy and according to Maclean and Wood (2010) is “condition in which individuals do not vote or do not follow the election process because they believe that election do not affect or influence them or that their vote has little influence over outcomes” (p. 183). Voter apathy has become a threat to the election process due to the violence. The post-election violence of 2007/08 was so bad that there was a need for foreign intervention the “UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his African Union appointed team” (Brown & Sriram, p. 244, 2012) had to step and settle the crisis by creating a coalition government.

The Government that was created adopted a new model of power-sharing which gave power to all parties which were the quickest way of ending the conflict, and it allowed for a wider range of participation which granted the government legitimacy within its own actions (Cheeseman & Tendi, 2010). The purpose of the coalition government was to end the dispute in Kenya, however, it created a system that had more checks and balances that the previous system that seemed authoritarian and had very few checks and balances, also, the coalition system made it easier for compromises to be reached rather than resulting into conflict. This shows that Kenya is not completely democratic but is on the path of democracy democratic.

Kenya just like any other LDCs faces some major problems such as their welfare system. Maclean and Wood (2010) define welfare as “legislation or social action taken to provide citizens with physical, financial, health, or other assistance” (p. 46). Kenya is on a path to becoming democratic and strives for economic development to sustain the population. However, there is so much focus on economic development and less emphasis on the social policies that shield the citizens from poverty, illnesses, and social incidents to make it possible for them to achieve their goals (Kwon, Mkandawire & Palme, 2009).

Social policies is an effective way of boosting the economy, a good example of this is Korea after it got its independence it started using land reforms and redistributing the land from the high class to the low class in order to boosts its agricultural production, Korea focused more on its social policy and made sure that education was attainable to those that needed it and skill training (Kwon, Mkandawire & Palme, 2009). The use of social policy helped boost its economic development because there was a great emphasis on individual development. However, Kenya on the other hand does not have a solid welfare system to make social policies that can develop the individuals in the country, this can affect the economic development of the country because without individual development the economic development is becoming difficult.

Once Kenya got its independence it has had a hard time in its struggle to become fully democratic but it’s still on the path of been democratic, although, some parts of its democratic system such as it election process is still far from what a fully democratic system should look like, also the development of the welfare system in Kenya has impacted the economic development of the country and needs to be improved for any economic development. Kenya has the potential to become fully democratic and increase its economic development, however, the development of the welfare system is the key to this happening.

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