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Kenya

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Hopes for Reform Under New Administration Are Dashed

Opposition leader Mwai Kibaki won the Dec. 2002 presidential election, defeating Moi's protégé, Uhuru Kenyatta (term limits prevented Moi, in power for 24 years, from running again). Kibaki promised to put an end to the country's rampant corruption. In his first few months, Kibaki did initiate a number of reforms—ordering a crackdown on corrupt judges and police and instituting free primary school education—and international donors opened their coffers again.

But by 2004, disappointment in Kibaki set in with the lack of further progress, and a long-awaited new constitution, meant to limit the president's power, still had not been delivered. Kibaki's anticorruption minister, John Githongo, resigned in Feb. 2005, frustrated that he was prevented from investigating a number of scandals. In July 2005, Parliament finally approved a draft of a constitution, but in Dec. 2005 voters rejected it because it expanded the president's powers.

A drought ravaged Kenya, and by Jan. 2006, 2.5 million Kenyans faced starvation.