Southern & East Africa: Kenya
Overview
Kenya's 2002 general election marked a watershed event in the country's political history. The opposition National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) swept into power, ending more than 40 years of rule by the Kenya African National Union (KANU). With the result, Kenyans unambiguously rejected the decades of mismanagement, corruption, and declining economic growth that had come to define their country. As the 2007 national elections approach, political parties face a number of challenges in their effort to participate in a peaceful and fair multi-party process. Ongoing divisions within the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), the alliance that won the 2002 elections, and the splintering of the Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya (ODM-K), the opposition formed during the 2005 referendum, threatens the significant progress made in recent years. Regardless of the fluid nature of Kenyan politics, the main parties and coalitions continue to work to systematize operations within their organizations. More specifically they are developing new, more inclusive and systematic candidate nomination procedures and are working to define and articulate their political platforms around pressing issues of concern to citizens.
NDI in Kenya
NDI has actively supported Kenyan efforts to strengthen democratic institutions and advance democratic reforms since 1993. Programs in Kenya initially provided skills training to enhance women's political participation and to strengthen the capacity of nonpartisan civic groups to monitor elections. Since 2001, NDI has worked with political parties in the country with support from a variety of donors including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
NDI is currently working with parties at the national level to help them better articulate and refine their positions on key issues, efficiently participate in coalition-building, strengthen their rules and procedures, and refine their internal nomination procedures. NDI works with numerous party partners including members of ODM/ODM-K to help them better define their coalition and member party interaction.
Through provincial workshops, NDI continues to provide training to party branch officials in areas such as membership recruitment, promoting the participation of women and youth, and the role of branch offices in party structures. The Institute has built the capacity of party branch officials to communicate with their party headquarters and strengthened their role in such processes and activities as coalition-building and platform development. The Institute also works with political party secretariats, National Executive Councils (NECs) and sectoral committees to more effectively coordinate, manage, and contribute to party activities in advance of the 2007 general elections. To help insure better inter-party interaction and peaceful elections later this year, NDI has expanded its work with Inter-Party Provincial Committees (IPPCs) in 13 potential “hot spots” or areas where, historically, the risk of electoral violence has been particularly high throughout the country. Instrumental to quelling violence in the 2002 elections, the IPPCs aim to deter election-related violence by introducing confidence-building measures between political party leadership, community leaders, and the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK)
As a means to address both electoral violence and the strengthening of party institutions, NDI has promoted the constructive involvement of youth in the political and electoral process through its Youth Political Leadership Academy (YPLA) in which it strengthens the leadership skills of participants so that they can take on more responsibility within their parties. One YPLA class of 35 participants from seven parties successfully completed the YPLA in June 2007. The Institute is currently conducting another round of the YPLA and anticipates expanding its programming to enhance youth participation within their parties after the elections.
Contact Information
For further information on our programs in Kenya, please contact:
Jerry Lavery
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Updated September 2007