Politicised Ethnicity, Competitive Politics and Conflict in Kenya: A Historical Perspective

Throughout the period of its political independence, Kenya has had a fairly limited experience with competitive multi-party politics. The Ž rst was the short-lived experiment with political pluralism from independence in 1963 to the “Little General Election” in 1966. The second began in the early 1990s and included the multiparty elections of 1992 and 1997. In both periods, ethnicity has emerged as the single most important factor in political competition. Political activity since the renewal of competitive politics in 1992 has seen the reconstruction of ethnicity, ethnic mobilisation and ethnic con ict as the main instruments of political contestation. Political parties have been organised along ethnic identities and state-power aggressively contested on the basis of mobilised ethnicity.