History
After negotiation with the British since 1957, the British allowed "one person, one vote" elections in 1963. The first elections went smootly, electing Jomo Kenyatta as the first president of Kenya in 1964. However, under his leadership, competitive elections slowly disappeared as various political parties either joined or were suppressed by the Kenya African National Union (KANU). This consolidated single-party system would last even after Kenyatta died in 1978, eventually reaffirmed in an amendment to the constitution in 1982 which made Kenya a one party system.
After major political demonstrations in 1990, KANU bowed to public pressure and began reviewing the electoral system. In 1992 the amendment that had mainted a single party system was revoked, returning Kenya to multi-party elections. The constitutional shift did not immediately manifest itself in well run multiparty elections. However, by 2002 the international community thought the electoral system generally free, as KANU peacably transferred power to the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC).
Violence has been known to trouble elections, most recently in the December 2007 presidential elections, where an estimated 1000 people were killed and 600,000 displaced.
Read more about this topic: Elections In Kenya
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)