‘Power to Uhuru’: Youth Identity and Generational Politics in Kenya’s 2002 Elections

Abstract

Faced with the challenge of a new, multi-ethnic political coalition, President Daniel arap Moi shifted the axis of the 2002 electoral contest from ethnicity to the politics of generational conflict. The strategy backfired, ripping his party wide open and resulting in its humiliating defeat in the December 2002 general elections. Nevertheless, the discourse of a generational change of guard as a blueprint for a more accountable system of governance won the support of some youth movements like Mungiki. This article examines how the movement's leadership exploited the generational discourse in an effort to capture power. Examining the manipulation of generational and ethnic identities in patrimonial politics, the article argues that the instrumentalization of ethnicity in African politics has its corollary in the concomitant instrumentalization of other identities race, class, gender, clan, age and religion. As THE HISTORIC 27 DECEMBER 2002 ELECTIONS got under way, it became evident that Kenya was poised for 'one of the most significant political changes since independence'.' The electoral victory of the ethnically based parties coalesced around the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) ended Daniel arap Moi's 24-year patrimonial rule, which many Kenyans blamed for their economic miseries and for the erosion of accountability of state power and of respect for citizenship rights and the ideals of nationhood, reduced by corruption, greed and the cynical manipulation of ethnicity. NARC's victory signified the triumph of ethnic pluralism and national rejuvenation. However, Kenya's return to the multi-ethnic foundations of its nationhood in late 2002 occurred in the shadow of widening inter-generational discord and tension.2 Dr. Peter Mwangi Kagwanja is the Director, International Crisis Group (Southern Africa) and Research Associate, Center for International Political Studies, University of Pretoria, South Africa. 1. Anders Ndirma, 'Elections in Kenya', Review of African Political Economy 30, 96 (2003), pp. 343-50; see also Lionel Cliffe, 'Kenya post-election prospects', Review of African Political Economy 30, 96 (2003), pp. 341-3. 2. See 'Children in the spotlight: a place in the African security debate', editorial, African Security Review 11, 3 (2002), p. 1.