Moi, Daniel 1924—

Daniel Moi 1924—

President of Kenya

At a Glance…

Elected President

Resisted U.S. Pressure

Attacked Judicial System and Press

Weathered Coup Attempt

Charged with Human Rights Abuses

Sources

After more than a decade of ruling Kenya as its elected president, Daniel Moi faces serious problems in political, economic, and social areas. Politically a one-party state since a 1982 constitutional amendment legitimized the Kenya African National Union (KANU) as the country’s single party, Kenya now faces increasing pressure from at home and abroad to move toward a multiparty system. The sweeping deomocratic reforms taking place in Eastern Europe and elsewhere have not gone unnoticed in Africa.

Moi has long been a strong advocate of the single-party system as practiced in Kenya. He was responsible for the 1982 constitutional amendment that outlawed opposition parties, and he recently received support on this issue from Nelson Mandela. During his July 1990 visit to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, Mandela defended Kenya’s single-party system by asking the rhetorical question, “What right have the whites anywhere to teach us about democracy, when they executed those who asked for democracy during the time of colonial rule?”

There are at least three strong arguments that Moi puts forth in defense of his one-party rule. Historically, Kenya has shown an unprecedented political stability for an African nation, and the country is blessed with a high level of economic, intellectual, and political development. A proliferation of political parties, Moi argues, would only encourage tribalism over nationalism. Kenya is an ethnically diverse nation of more than 40 tribes, and Kenyan politics have been intertwined with tribal interests even before independence was achieved in December 1963. Throughout Africa, tribalism has been a major deterrent to economic and political development. Wars in Africa nearly always take place between tribes rather than nations.

As a term, “tribes’ is used to refer to specific ethnic groups. Tribalism in Kenya amounts to a fear of the Kikuyu, the country’s largest tribe. Historically, the Kikuyu have been prominent in Kenyan politics; it was the tribe of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president and the man who is considered the father of independent Kenya. While Kenyatta proclaimed a doctrine of nationalism, many of his policies favored his own tribe. When Kenyatta died in 1978, the law required an election within 90 days. The Kikuyu were split between two powerful rivals from their own tribe, Attorney General Charles Njonjo and

At a Glance…

Full name, Daniel Arap Moi; took the name Daniel when baptized by Christian missionaries; born in 1924 to a farming family of the Kalenjin tribe in the Baringo district of the Rift Valley Province of western Kenya; married; children: several. Education: Attended missionary and government schools and received teacher training at the Kapsabet Teacher Training College, becoming a teacher at the Government African School in 1945.

Began career as teacher, quickly advanced to head teacher, and following a series of promotions, became the headmaster of the Government African School, 1954-57. Entered politics in 1955 as a black representative from the Rift Valley; Moi became one of the first eight blacks elected to the Legislative Council, 1957; reelected, 1958; went to London in 1960 as one of the African delegates who helped draft a new Kenyan constitution; elected assistant treasurer of the newly formed KANU (political party), 1961; established, with the leaders of other minority tribes, political party KADU, served as chairman for about a year; served in various ministerial capacities, including Minister of Education, 1961-62, Minister of Local Government 1962-64, and Minister for Home Affairs 1964-67; became Jomo Kenyatta’s vice-president, 1967, and succeeded as president upon Kenyatta’s death in 1978, re-elected in 1983 and 1988.

Mwai Kibaki. With the support of Njonjo, the Kikuyu backed Moi, Kenyatta’s vicepresident and a member of a smaller tribe, the Kalenjin.

Elected President

Moi ran unopposed and selected Kibaki for his vice-president, letting the Kikuyu think they would soon return to power. However, another powerful tribe, the Luo, gave Moi their backing, not wanting the Kikuyu to return to power. Moi consolidated his power when, in 1982, he persuaded parliament to pass a constitutional amendment that made KANU the country’s only legal party.

Fear of Kikuyu dominance in the nation’s politics stems from the colonial period, when the Kikuyu both benefitted and suffered from the British presence. The British settled where the Kikuyu lived, in Nairobi and the surrounding highlands, where they established tea estates on some of the most fertile acreage in Kenya. From the British, the Kikuyu were exposed to trade and commerce and other modern ways; they also received some educational benefits. Tribes further from Nairobi enjoyed few, if any, benefits from colonial rule, and they resented the Kikuyu.

The British also exposed the Kikuyu to concepts of freedom and independence, and the Kikuyu-led “Mau Mau rebellion” of the early 1950s was an early attempt to achieve independence. To put down the uprising, the British employed other tribes, thus increasing the animosity between tribes. The Luo, a tribe originally from western Kenya, had their first contact with the Kikuyu in Nairobi, where they came to compete for jobs. In anticipation of independence for Kenya, the British in 1960 allowed the formation of political parties; the Kikuyu and Luo joined together to form KANU. Other tribes formed KADU, the Kenya African Democratic Union, whose largest tribes were the Luhya, Kenya’s second largest tribe, and the Kalenjin, Moi’s tribe and the nation’s fifth largest. Moi was one of the KADU leaders.

One-party rule in Kenya actually began less than a year after independence, when the KADU voluntarily dissolved itself, its members joining KANU. Except for a three-year period in the late 1960s, one-party rule has continued uninterrupted in Kenya to the present time. That three-year exception is notable for the formation in 1966 of the KPU, Kenya People’s Union, by Oginga Odinga, Kenyatta’s vice-president at the time. “Mr. Double O,” as he is known informally, split with Kenyatta’s capitalist-oriented policy and formed the KPU as a left wing, ideologically based party. He was a Luo, and most of the party members were Luo, so the party represented a break between the Luo and Kikuyu tribes. The final Luo-Kikuyu break came in 1969 with the assassination of Tom Mboya, a Luo and one of the country’s strongest nationalists. The assassin was identified as a Kikuyu, and following incidents of violence against Kenyatta, the KPU was banned and its leaders put in jail. Oginga Odinga, KPU’s founder, would later emerge as a voice of socialist opposition against Moi’s regime in the 1980s.

In addition to concerns over tribalism, Kenya’s one-party system is defended as appropriate for an African nation. It is argued that multiparty systems are being forced on African nations by colonial powers, and they are not consistent with African traditions and cultures. It is also argued that most African countries are not sufficiently developed for a pluralist democracy to take hold.

Resisted U.S. Pressure

While Moi has tolerated debate on multiparty democracy, he has resisted pressures from the United States to practice pluralist politics. As Moi faced the end of 1990, a year that saw considerable unrest in his nation, he was presented with the prospect that future U.S. aid may be tied to the formation of a Western-style democracy and other conditions. Kenya has enjoyed good relations with the West because of its free market and avoidance of communism. With the end of the Cold War, though, he is facing increasing pressure to democratize the country.

The year began with riots in February that resulted when the unsolved murder of Foreign Minister Robert Ouko was linked with possible government involvement and food prices were decontrolled. In June, Kenya’s Catholic bishops expressed alarm about the “unlimited authority” of KANU. It was becoming disturbing to the bishops that Moi and KANU were not being held accountable by the country’s citizens. It was KANU’s policy at the time to purge members with differing views.

Moi’s tolerance of debate on the multiparty issue ended in July 1990, when the government began rounding up the leaders of the multiparty movement. Those identified as leaders included former cabinet ministers Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia, noted human rights attorney Gibson Kamau Kuria, and Raila Odinga, son of former Kenyatta Vice-President Oginga Odinga. Kuria received asylum in the U.S. Embassy and was later allowed to leave the country for the United States, where he would teach at the Harvard Law School as a visiting scholar. The other three were held without charges, and Moi rebuked the U.S. for interfering in Kenya’s internal affairs. The U.S. countered with a statement that it was “distressed” at Kenya’s repression and arrest of dissidents. As other dissidents fled the country, four days of riots and street violence engulfed Nairobi and surrounding areas. Following these riots, President Moi appointed a KANU committee to begin hearings around the country to determine what political changes the people of Kenya wanted.

While Moi’s adherence to one-party rule may be justifiable, his rule as president has been marked by a steady erosion of the country’s democratic institutions, including the press, the judiciary, and the voting system. When Moi was elected to his first term as president in November 1979, five million people, or 80 percent of the electorate, turned out to vote. Over 740 candidates ran for the 158 seats in parliament. At that time, it was typical for only half of the incumbents to retain their seats. In that election, Moi ran unopposed in his own district, and many from the old Kenyatta regime were ousted.

As a result of voting reforms introduced in 1986 that partially eliminated the secret ballot, the turnout in the 1988 election was quite low, and more than three quarters of the incumbent members of parliament retained their seats. In 1986, the secret ballot was replaced in primary elections by a system of queuing, whereby voters stand in front of the picture of the candidate of their choice. While the secret ballot was retained for general elections, a 70 percent rule was also introduced, which gave the primary candidates automatic election if they received more than 70 percent of the primary vote. These reforms served to reduce the possibility of change in the elected government, lessening the accountability of elected officials and consolidating Moi’s political support.

Attacked Judicial System and Press

Moi’s attack on Kenya’s independent judiciary began in 1986, when the constitution was amended to take away life tenure from the attorney general. Two years later, life tenure was taken away from senior judges. These officials now serve at the will of the president, thus effectively eliminating the independent judiciary system. Moi also sought greater control over Kenya’s press, long considered one of the country’s strong points. In recent years, three magazines have been banned. Government officials often block stories from the newspapers, and the press is reluctant to investigate corruption among cabinet ministers and senior KANU politicians. Moi’s actions have fostered a personality cult and left him unwilling or unable to solve the problem of “rampant corruption and maddening excesses of bureaucracy,” according to Time magazine. Britain’s liberal paper, the Guardian, has called Moi’s regime “one of the world’s most corrupt leaderships.”

When he first became president, Moi promised to attack the corruption that had grown under Jomo Kenyatta’s rule. Kenyatta’s estate was valued at $200 million at the time of his death. Moi publicly denounced five members of parliament for illegal practices and began investigating contracts awarded by the Ministry of Works. In an attempt to reduce Kenyatta’s estate, he authorized the repossession of property by unpaid creditors and enforced the collection of back taxes. However, it soon became clear that Moi was only pursuing incidents of corruption at the lowest levels of government. In his own government, high-level cabinet ministers reportedly made personal fortunes by importing sugar at a time when Kenya’s sugar supply was low.

The first years of Moi’s presidency were filled with the promise of positive developments for Kenya. He virtually eliminated the legal killing of game and the smuggling of ivory and coffee, practices that had been tolerated by Kenyatta. He reaffirmed Kenyatta’s policy of development along capitalist rather than socialist lines. In a December 1978 speech, he announced the release of 26 political prisoners who had opposed Kenyatta and introduced several social programs to combat illiteracy, increase universal free primary education, strengthen employment, and provide free milk daily to all primary school children.

Weathered Coup Attempt

The first sign of an erosion in Moi’s popular support came in mid-1982, when rebels from the Embakasi air force base near Nairobi seized the Voice of Kenya radio station, announced the formation of a provisional National Redemption Council, and promised the release of all political prisoners. The coup attempt was launched by junior or enlisted members of Kenya’s air force who were quickly joined by students from the University of Nairobi. Their quick defeat led some commentators to speculate that the coup had been betrayed by another contingent that was to have joined the rebel forces.

Although the coup attempt was quickly stamped out, the rebels were joined by slum dwellers in a looting spree aimed primarily at the Asian shopkeeper of Nairobi’s tourist district and causing millions of dollars of damage. The rebels were defeated by loyalists from the Kenyan army and the General Service Unit, a paramilitary police force. Moi, not in Nairobi at the time, returned to the city and quickly launched a crackdown resulting in 3,000 arrests, including four fifths of the 2,500-person air force.

The 1982 coup attempt revealed dangerous tensions in Kenyan politics. Moi had begun showing his authoritarian bent earlier in the year, when he order the detention without charges of seven people, including four lecturers from the University of Nairobi and their lawyer. In June, the constitutional amendment legitimizing KANU as the country’s sole political party was passed. Following the coup attempt, Moi in May 1983 called for parliamentary elections that September, fourteen months before they would have been constitutionally mandated. New party rules enabled Moi to handpick the entire slate of election candidates, since they all had to receive the approval of KANU’s executive. During the year, Moi succeeded in purging Charles Njonjo, a former supporter and powerful Kikuyu, and his followers from the government. In the 1983 election, only 48 percent of the electorate turned out.

In 1984, Moi demonstrated a willingness to open a dialogue with student dissenters, even as he introduced measures in parliament that would reduce criticism of his regime. His authority over the cabinet ministers, who accounted for over 40 percent of parliament, was established when they were required to sign a letter from the president stating that they were not at liberty to criticize or differ from the government outside immediate government circles. In effect, senior KANU members were no longer able to express criticism of President Moi.

Charged with Human Rights Abuses

In 1987, following the introduction of the 1986 “queue-voting” system and the suppression of the Mwakenya conspiracy during which more than 100 people had been detained, Kenya was cited for human rights abuses. Amnesty International reported on repeated allegations of torture, which was believed to have been used on all political prisoners. Gibson Kamau Kuria, a human rights attomey, began to prepare an unprecedented case against the government. Moi’s actions were also opposed by the moderate National Christian Council of Kenya, which opposed the elimination of secret ballots and said, “The party is assuming a totalitarian role. It claims to speak for the people and yet does not allow the people to give their views.”

President Moi responded in June 1989 to continuing international criticism of his human rights record by releasing all political prisoners who were being held without charges and by offering an amnesty to dissidents in exile. In light of 1990’s developments, though, it seems those actions represented no change in the government’s intolerance of political dissent.

As Moi looks ahead to the 1990s and a constitutionally scheduled election in 1993, he must also deal with the problem of declining tourism in the face of escalating violence involving elephant and rhinocerous poaching. Kenya’s fabled widlife and its system of national parks have long attracted international tourists, making tourism an important contributor to Kenya’s economic wellbeing. In September 1988, Moi introduced a “shoot-to-kill” policy against the poachers after three Kenyan rangers were murdered.

In April 1989, Moi appointed Richard Leakey the new director of the Kenyan Wildlife Service. Over 100 poachers were shot by game scouts in 1989, and the elephant kill was reduced from 1,500 in 1988 to only 100 in the year following Leakey’s appointment. The violence continued, though, when George Adamson, a champion of lions, was killed in his camp at Kora Park in northeast Kenya in August 1989. That July, a Connecticut woman on an Audubon-sponsored photo–safari was killed by poachers–turned–bandits. Most of the poaching and related violence has been attributed to Somali shifta who cross the border from Kenya’s northeastern coastal neighbor.

Kenya supported the October 1989 reclassification by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) of the African elephant from a “threatened” species to one “endangered” by trade. The move effectively outlawed the ivory trade among CITES’s 103 member nations, with only China and five southern African nations (Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa) filing reservations to the ban. Earlier that year, President Moi had dramatically set fire to 12 tons of bleached elephant tusks worth an estimated $3.6 million on the international market. Also at risk is Kenya’s rhinocerous population, which has been reduced from 20,000 to only 500 over the past 20 years.

Sources

Books

Africa South of the Sahara, 1991, Europa, 1990.

Periodicals

American Spectator, March 1990.

Atlantic, June 1979.

Atlas World Press Review, March 1979.

Audubon, September 1990.

Current History, March 1982; March 1983; May 1987.

Maclean’s, August 16, 1982; May 30, 1983; July 31, 1989.

The Nation, September 11, 1982.

New Yorker, September 3, 1990.

Newsweek, July 23, 1990.

Rolling Stone, October 4, 1990.

Time, November 19, 1979; August 16, 1982; October 16, 1989; May 21, 1990.

World Press Review, May 1987.

—David Bianco