Patrons, Clients, and Constitutions: Ethnic Politics and Political Reform in Kenya

The euphoria that followed the 2002 elections in Kenya and the end of the increasingly authoritarian regime of Daniel arap Moi, soon dissipated as the regime of Mwai Kibaki slid into the business as usual of corruption, patronage and cronyism of politics in Africa's most strongly articulated informal system of ethnic-based patronage, one that originated in the colonial period and was refined and extended under the Kenyatta and Moi regimes. Kibaki's government dragged its heels on promised constitutional reforms. Even though the CKRC attempted a nation-wide consultative process and produced a popular "people's" constitution in the "Bomas" draft, the politicians co-opted the process with a revised draft shaped by ethnic interests and conflicts that was rejected in the fiercely contested referendum of November 2005 and split the ruling coalition, defining the bitter cleavages that dominated the 2007 election and erupted in the widespread violence that followed.