Arap Moi Again

This time with feeling

In Kenya an election campaign is always a kind of carnival, but the one that wound up last week was especially tumultuous. No fewer than 742 hopefuls ran for the 158 seats in parliament, and nearly 5 million people, a record 80% of the electorate, went to the polls. And why not? By some estimates, the candidates spent as much as $75 million on free beer and assorted gifts (two staples: cheap watches and T shirts) as well as outright bribes to curry favor with voters. And as for the office seekers, they could bank on a rule of Kenyan politics that says that fewer than half of the sitting legislators ever get reelected. This year, as usual, only about half the incumbents retained their seats. Observed a Kenyan economist: "We don't shoot people in this country. We let the public do it for us."

The most significant thing the public did last week was to give a rousing vote of confidence to Daniel arap Moi, 55. Arap Moi has been Kenya's President since the death 14 months ago of Jomo Kenyatta, the autocratic old warrior who secured the East African country's inde pendence from Britain in 1963 and ruled it like a benign colonial governor ever after. Not only did Arap Moi run without opposition in his own district,* but many old Kenyatta regime holdovers were ousted. Arap Moi will now be free to put his own imprint on Kenya.

A shy, modest man who does not smoke or drink, Arap Moi was the flamboyant Kenyatta's somewhat faceless Vice President for eleven years before Jomo's death. Then, the conventional wisdom was that Kenya would be torn apart in a bloody tribal struggle for power, because no one in sight had anything like the following of the Mzee (Swahili for old man). But with the backing of the two most powerful Cabinet ministers belonging to the dominant Kikuyu tribe, Arap Moi was selected as the new President by the country's ruling party, the Kenya African National Union.

Many believed that Arap Moi would be controlled by Kenyatta's old cronies. Indeed he did retain nearly all of Kenyatta's ministers. Gradually, however, he began moving out on his own--literally. Casting himself as a circuit-riding populist, he visited villages throughout the country; in the past year, Arap Moi has logged more miles than Kenyatta did during all of his 15 years in power.

More important, the new President attacked the ills that took root in Kenya's government during Kenyatta's later years. As part of his "footstep" program to root out corruption, he publicly denounced five M.P.s for illegal practices, launched an investigation of contracts awarded by the Ministry of Works, and started a probe of the Lands Ministry.

Arap Moi also virtually eliminated the illegal killing of game and the smuggling of ivory and coffee long tolerated by Kenyatta. Says one villager from Jomo's home town of Gatundu: "Everyone likes the President because he has stopped the outlaws, the poachers and coffee smugglers. In Kenyatta's day, you could see a big man with a number of jobs. Nowadays it is one man, one job, and we are all equal."

Arap Moi has also set about to diminish the power of Kenyatta's Kikuyu tribe, which, though it accounts for only 20% of the 15.5 million population, exercises near total control over Kenya's 40 other tribes. In last week's election many members of the tribe's political arm, the GEMA Party, were defeated; in Nairobi only three of the eight M.P.s affiliated with the tribal party were reelected.

Among the defeated was Kenyatta's righthand man and brother-in-law, Mbi-yu Koinange, who got through the 1974 election by locking up his opponent before voting day and releasing him afterward. The President has also begun to chip away at the large business and land holdings of the Kenyatta family by quietly authorizing repossessions of property by unpaid creditors and pressing for payment of back taxes. The total wealth is staggering; Jomo Kenyatta's estate alone is estimated to be worth more than $200 million.

As Kenya's chief executive, Arap Moi faces many unsolved problems. Housing is poor: in some cities, families crowd into a single room with no toilet or kitchen and pay $60 a month for the privilege. Jobs are scarce, inflation is running at 11%, and Kenya's export earnings are down as a result of a drastic drop in world prices for coffee and tea over the past two years. At the same time, Kenya's population is expected to double by the end of the century, which may make it impossible to raise living standards.

Today Kenya's economy is heavily dependent on foreign aid, which now totals $300 million a year, or about 10% of the country's gross national product. Explains an Agency for International Development economist stationed there: "People like to give money to Kenya. It's a sexy country."

Despite the country's economic problems, most Kenyans seem to feel that it is particularly blessed, not least in the area of race relations. Kenya's white population, now more than 60,000, has actually grown since independence. "I do not know anybody who is not very happy with our lot right now," says Philip Leakey, 30, a member of the famous family of Kenya-based anthropologists, who last week became one of the few whites ever to be elected to parliament. And as for those slipping living standards, Kenyans believe they are not alone among their neighbors. As one proverb has it: "In Kenya, dogs eat dogs, but in Tanzania, dogs eat nothing."

*In Kenya the President must be a member of parliament, and is elected by that body for a five-year term.

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