Development and Cooperation


	Viewpoint Two continents Kenya: political and popular moves against corruption Brazil: economic policy shaped for and by society Brazil: economic policy shaped for and by society 02/2003		Kenya: political and popular moves against corruption by Cord Jakobeit At the end of 2002, Kenyans got what the people of Togo, Gabon and Zimbabwe are still waiting for: an opposition swept to victory in largely fair and free elections. And the country's old rulers did not respond with violence; they quietly accepted the result. Earlier, in April 2000 and January 2001, Senegal and Ghana showed that the handover of power in Africa does not need to be accompanied by civil war and chaos. Now, Kenya too is geared up for radical change. But what are the chances that the high expectations aroused by Kenya's new president Mwai Kibaki and his Rainbow Coalition will be met? What the new Kenyan government inherits from the outgoing regime could hardly be more dreadful. The Moi era was marked by an endemic corruption that today pervades every level of society, by unscrupulous plundering of state coffers, mounting mass poverty, a stagnating economy, widespread crime, dwindling school enrolment figures, a neglected infrastructure, unresolved political murders and financial scandals as well as ever-clearer signs of a state in decay. But the first steps taken by the country's new rulers are encouraging. President Kibaki assigns top priority to fighting corruption; members of the new government are required to declare their personal financial circumstances, and one of the first tasks on the new parliament's agenda is the creation of the anti-corruption agency demanded by foreign donors. However, Kibaki's electoral promises on the social front – the abolition of primary school fees, for example – will be impossible to finance without a swift resumption of the bilateral and multilateral development cooperation put on ice during the last few years of the Moi regime. And the private investors Kibaki is courting are first going to wait and see. One major credibility test for the new government will be the constitutional reform promised in the first hundred days to curtail the power of the president and strengthen the yet-to-be-created office of prime minister. A reduction of presidential power enshrined in the constitution and accepted by all sides would be a revolutionary move in Africa. More important than reforms from above, however, is the way Kenyans themselves are now behaving. Even though there is still no money for more teachers and classrooms, people are taking the government at its word and enrolling their children at the country's overcrowded schools. And if – as recently reported – people are refusing to pay bribes to corrupt traffic policemen at roadblocks, there is certainly hope. No one in Kenya can work miracles overnight but if political will is coupled with a change of mentality across the nation, two of the prime requirements for a successful war on corruption are met. Dr. Cord Jakobeit is a professor of political science specialising in international politics at Hamburg University.