Amid Scandals, Kenyans Are Feeling Duped

NAIROBI, Kenya —  Two years ago, Kenyans ranked as the most optimistic people on Earth.

Residents of this East African nation had just voted out a corruption-riddled ruling party and replaced it with an opposition leader who promised to clean up government graft, boost the economy and approve a new constitution in his first 100 days.

Their exuberance spread to the West, where President Bush welcomed the new president, Mwai Kibaki, to the White House, anointing the country as one of Africa’s most promising emerging democracies.

But after a strong start, Kibaki’s administration has stalled. High hopes have turned to bitter cynicism. And it’s not hard to find citizens who feel betrayed.

“We were conned,” Joseph Mwelesa, 32, said from behind the counter of his candy stand in Nairobi. “The [old] times were bad, but Kibaki is even worse.”

Graft is so rampant that the nation’s widely respected anti-corruption czar, John Githongo, quit in frustration in February and the U.S. and German governments protested by suspending nearly $10 million in aid.

Western observers are concerned that Kibaki’s government is displaying some of the same bad habits seen during the administration of President Daniel Arap Moi and appears unable or unwilling to address problems.

“We got suckered in just like everyone else,” said one Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Some of the corruption began before this administration came into power, but the Kibaki folks slid right into the transactions and demanded their cut.”

A deepening fracture in Kibaki’s fragile coalition government has crippled parliament and delayed adoption of the new constitution, spurring a leading coalition partner to call for mass anti-government protests. To shore up his power, Kibaki turned to one of the previous government’s most controversial power brokers, Nicholas Biwott, whose record and past dealings are so questionable that the U.S. refused to issue him a visa last year.

Kenya’s leading newspapers run banner headlines daily about the latest scandals, fueling the perception that even under the new government, Kenya’s rich and powerful continue to live by their own set of rules.

Kibaki’s wife, Lucy, raised eyebrows this month after storming into a farewell party for a neighbor, the outgoing World Bank director, and ordering that the music be turned down because it was disturbing her sleep.

Newspapers plastered the story across their front pages and accused the first lady of abusing her position. Undeterred, the next day Lucy Kibaki swept into the downtown offices of a leading newspaper in the middle of the night -- government security officers in tow -- and chewed out journalists for hours, slapping a cameraman who took her picture. When the cameraman pressed assault charges, the attorney general ordered that the case be dropped.

Atty. Gen. Amos Wako, a loyal ally of the president, is facing pressure to resign over his decision to release the scion of a colonial settler who admitted shooting an undercover Kenya Wildlife Service ranger on the family’s vast estate in western Kenya.

Tom Cholmondeley, great-grandson of British settler Lord Delamere, was jailed about a month ago in the killing of the ranger, who was investigating alleged illegal game trade on the estate. With Cholmondeley insisting that he believed the man was a robber, Wako dismissed murder charges for lack of evidence and ordered an inquest.

Numerous lawmakers, legal experts and citizens have condemned Wako’s actions. Police had to use tear gas to disperse one unruly crowd of protesters in downtown Nairobi.

“The Kibaki government is a total mess,” said Nairobi shopkeeper Grace Njeri, 25. “How can there be a lack of evidence? Someone is dead. Someone else has admitted to killing him. I don’t understand.”

Wako defended his actions last week and urged citizens to wait until the findings of the government inquest were released.

But the string of controversies is taking a toll. When Gallup polltakers returned to Kenya recently, they found the number of people who were optimistic about the future had plummeted to 41%, from 77% in 2003.

“We are today at a very dangerous junction in this country,” opposition leader Uhuru Kenyatta told Western business leaders this month. His Kenya African National Union party was ejected by voters in 2002 after four decades in power over many of the same complaints against Kibaki’s government.

The ever-smiling Kibaki has tried to steer clear of the controversies, allowing much of the criticism to fall to his aides.

Though he earned praise in his early days for providing free primary education and firing nearly two dozen judges, the 73-year-old’s health remains an issue. He has survived several strokes and was seriously injured in a car accident shortly before his election. At a donors conference early this year, two observers described the president as “incoherent.”

In a speech before an International Press Institute conference last weekend in Nairobi, Kibaki defended his tenure and called Kenya “one of the most democratic countries in Africa and indeed the world.”

“Since my government took over two years ago, we made a commitment to widen the democratic space.”

One of his Cabinet ministers suggested that Kibaki’s administration had fallen victim to unrealistic expectations of Kenyan voters who believed a change in government would quickly solve problems that have dogged the nation for decades.

“These bloated public expectations have led to frustration,” said Mukhisa Kituyi, minister of trade and industry.

He said the Kibaki-led coalition, which he helped form, was responsible in part for building up hopes -- for example, it promised to create 500,000 jobs a year. But, he said, “we found we can’t do everything in year one.”

Gladwell Otieno, former executive director of the Kenya chapter of Transparency International, a watchdog group, said the government commitment to fighting corruption seemed to collapse about six months ago.

“It unraveled really quickly,” she said. “There’s an air of desperation about it.”

Otieno was forced to resign last month after clashing with a Transparency International board member with ties to Kibaki. The group is investigating.

Kituyi said the government wasn’t worried about losing support in the next presidential election, scheduled for 2007. “Africa has never had a sitting president lose an election,” he said. “It’s not going to happen.”