For a brief time last year, it seemed that Kenya would emerge at last from decades of ruinous despotism. In an exemplary election at the end of 2002, Kenyans selected a reputable and reformist president, Mwai Kibaki, who won on the promise of ending corruption, comments The International Herald Tribune in Mondays editorial according to the World Bank press review.
But since then, ill health has increasingly sidelined Kibaki, allowing for the resurgence of antireformist forces. And recent events – including a violent crackdown on political protesters and the alleged theft of 188 million US dollar in public funds – have made it clear that pervasive corruption still threatens Kenyas future.
Less obvious is that Kenyas fate is as much a strategic concern to Western democracies as it is a humanitarian one. The international community must take concerted action to ensure that Kenya does not revert to a pariah state. Location and demography put Kenya, a nation of 30 million people, on the front lines in the war against terrorism.
As long as Kenya remains mired in corruption and political decay, however, the government will lack the popular support necessary to build the country and fight terrorism.
Many Kenyans live on less than one dollar a day; corruption in the last 25 years is estimated to have cost Kenya 1,2 billion US dollar. It is no wonder that an incipient fundamentalism fueled more by deprivation than by ideology has been noted among Kenyas Muslims.
In the past, governments and organizations have suspended aid to Kenya, pending reform. Those moves are credited with helping to bring about the 2002 elections and the now endangered anticorruption agenda.
Rather than giving up entirely on Kenya now, the international community needs to find the right mix of narrowly focused sanctions and inducements that can put the East African country back on a reformist path.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
