The Anglo-Leasing corruption scandal in Kenya: the politics of international and domestic pressures and counter-pressures

Abstract

Mwai Kibaki's election in 2002 raised enormous hopes: after 24 years' repressive and corrupt rule by his predecessor Daniel Arap Moi, an apparently reformist opposition leader had been democratically elected president. The fight against corruption stood high among his electoral promises. Unfortunately, a year and a half after his election, the enormous Anglo-Leasing corruption scandal, and Kibaki's failure to prosecute the ministers involved, marked the end of the anti-corruption war. Building on existing Kenyan literature and international relations scholarship on transnational advocacy networks, this article systematically analyses the impact of both international and domestic pressures exerted on Kibaki to fight corruption. It confirms that this combination of pressures explains Kibaki's initial dismissal of the ministers involved. However, analysis of the ‘counter-pressures’ is also necessary to understand the crisis in all its complexity. Desperately seeking electoral support for the 2007 election, Kibaki acquiesced to ethnically based counter-pressures exerted by the dismissed ministers, and reinstated them.