Coalition government inspires little confidence in Kenya
Critics: Leaders in denial, ignore nation's problems
NAIROBI - Six months after postelection clashes brought this country to its knees, life in Kenya appears back to normal - for better and for worse.
Ethnic fighting that killed more than 1,000 people has subsided. Political enemies are working together in a coalition government. Kenyans have returned to work and school.
But in the push to get the country back on a path of peace and prosperity, critics allege, Kenya's leaders are papering over deep-seated social and economic problems exposed by the Dec. 27 presidential vote, and reverting to old patterns of denial, political payoffs, and short-term fixes.
"We're slipping back into trivia while the central issues are not being addressed," said Richard Leakey, chairman of the Kenya branch of Transparency International, a government watchdog group. "We have not gone very far in addressing the fundamental problems. The government isn't showing any realism."
A fragile coalition government, cobbled together by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, has inspired little confidence. The bloated, 93-member Cabinet is the most expensive in Kenyan history, and critics accuse parliament members of being more concerned with preserving their tax-free $10,000-a-month pay packages than the plight of their constituents.
Relations between President Mwai Kibaki and his rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, are sometimes so frosty that their security guards nearly came to blows at a government rally in June. Meanwhile, Odinga and the vice president are fighting over which man comes second in the pecking order, resulting in tiffs over who should speak first and whose motorcade has the right of way.
Hopes that the painful clashes might usher in overdue reforms and encourage Kenyans to tackle longstanding historical grievances and tribal tensions are fading.
"It would seem, then, that these politicians had finally got what they wanted: power, or, to be precise, a share of it," read a recent front-page editorial in the Standard newspaper. "Other matters were quickly relegated to the bottom of their priorities agenda."
Even Kenya's controversial electoral commission, which was widely criticized by local and international observers for failing to prevent vote fraud, remains intact and recently oversaw another round of polling for parliament members.
The government's first test was coping with an estimated 350,000 displaced Kenyans living in squalid camps after postelection violence drove them from their homes. Riots engulfed much of the country after the electoral commission, handpicked by Kibaki, ignored evidence of tallying fraud after the election and hastily declared him the victor.
Violence quickly turned into ethnic warfare as Kenya's tribes vented longstanding frustrations over competition for land, jobs, and political power. Entire villages were burned to the ground.
In May, the government announced a campaign to resettle Kenyans, sometimes by force, in their villages. Government officials say nearly 200,000 people returned home.
But in reality, very few have returned to the homes they fled, aid workers say. Most have simply shifted to new, smaller camps, moved in with relatives, returned to ancestral homelands, or are squatting on empty land or church grounds.
Critics say the government not only failed to provide the promised monetary compensation to help victims rebuild homes, but it also ignored the most crucial component: reconciliation.
As a result, many displaced people say they remain too afraid or too angry to go home.
Virginia Wangari, 62, a divorced mother of eight, said she was persuaded by government officials to leave a displacement camp in May and return to her Rift Valley village.
She said she was promised tents, food, and other supplies and told that local officials would be waiting to welcome her.
Instead, she and other returnees found no one to greet them and spent their first night on a bus. In the morning, local officials told her she was on her own. 