KENYA AND TANZANIA

As 2002 elections approach, dissatisfaction with Moi rises, but his ministers in government call for change of constitution to allow him another term.

Public opinion goes against Moi.

Under considerable pressure, he decides to step down, selects a son of Kenyatta (the first president of Kenya) to run as his favorite, Uhuru Kenyatta (to the left of Moi in photo)

Previous members of Moi government defect. One who defected a decade earlier and lost earlier elections to Moi, Mwai Kibaki (pictured at right), becomes candidate of National Rainbow Coalition (NARC)

Kibaki is injured in pre-election car crash, but wins the election even so, running on a program of cleaning up corruption -- "sweeping victory . . . crushing defeat"

Analysis by Ishbel Matheson for BBC

Corruption has risen remarkably during the Moi years. Transparency International of Kenya reported that Kenyans were asked for a bribe in two thirds of their encounters with public officials.

Kibaki makes a good early start on corruption cleanup:

• He appoints corruption czar: John Githongo, previously journalist and executive head of Transparency International, Kenya
• Sets up tribunals to clean up corruption
• He prompts many top officials to resign, including Chief Justice Bernard Chunga
• Elsewhere, Euro Bank collapses taking with it millions of shillings of Kenyan social security funds, prompting fraud investigations, resignations of Central Bank governor Nahashon Nyagah and Kenya Revenue Authority commissioner-general John Munge

  [See Transparency International reproduction of story from The Nation of March 5, 2003]

• Kibaki sets up commission to investigate human rights abuses under Moi government
• However, complaints of corruption continue to rise, with new revelations about the scale of corruption, and the resignation of the corruption czar John Githongo. The US freezes funds, and the EU issues warnings. Kibaki says he is still placing high priority on ridding the country of corruption. BBC story of February 11, 2005 is linked here. The South African paper "Mail & Guardian" reports that "Despite Kibaki's pledges to clamp down on graft, donors estimate graft may have cost Kenya up to a billion dollars since 2002, nearly a fifth of the country's 2004/05 official state Budget of about $5,5-billion." Their February 11, 2005 story is linked here.
• Former corruption czar, Githongo, flees to England, releases information about scandals involving high government officials. He tells of informing ministers in the government of the scandal, only to be ignored, and with threats made to him. A February 2006 BBC article giving more information is linked here. See also an earlier February 2006 overview from BBC linked here. The scandal is alleged to have cost Kenya millions of dollars. High officials have been resigning or being dismissed as a result.
• The Transparency International Kenya page linked here is a good place for recent information on these scandals.
• Image of Kibaki as elitist, closely linked to well-off people from Central Province known by some as the Mt. Kenya Mafia or "old guard." BBC story that gives more depth is linked here.