Kenya: The Surprising Holdout

With its free markets and abhorrence of communism, Kenya has long been a darling of the West, the oft-cited example of an African country that works. But in conforming to the Western powers' model for an ally, President Daniel arap Moi draws the line at multiparty democracy. Not even the implicit threat of a cutback in aid to countries that fail to practice pluralistic politics, delivered by U.S. Ambassador Smith Hempstone earlier this month, has budged him. "Kenya," Moi replied to the envoy's comments, "does not require any guidance from outsiders on how to run its affairs."

Moi, who assumed the mantle of independence hero Jomo Kenyatta in 1978, justifies maintaining the monopoly of his Kenya African National Union -- codified by a 1982 constitutional amendment -- the standard way: a single party begets stability, which begets prosperity. True enough, ethnic tensions that have provoked violence in other parts of Africa have rarely disturbed Kenya's 27 years of independence, even though the country encompasses more than 40 major tribes. And Kenya has maintained economic growth in recent years % at 3% to 5% annually, up to twice the sub-Saharan average. "We are being asked to risk that which we have so painstakingly built in order to lead up to some generalized, universal prescription of political behavior," Moi said in a second rebuttal to Hempstone.

Kenya may be losing its allure for investors, however. Fed up with rampant corruption and maddening excesses of bureaucracy, businessmen -- both foreign and local -- are thinking twice. According to a Nairobi-based U.S. official, there have been few major foreign investments in Kenya in the past decade. Instead, there has been significant disinvestment. An economic downturn will be especially painful, since business is already expanding too slowly to generate sufficient jobs for the population, which is multiplying by a phenomenal 3.7% a year, one of the highest rates in the world.

If the government stops delivering good times, Kenyans may follow the recent pattern in a number of other African countries and begin to agitate for changes. In the past few years, Moi has given them more and more reason to chafe at his rule. Claiming to make the political system inherited from British colonizers more "indigenous," Moi has stripped the judiciary of its independence, cowed parliament, banned critical publications and fostered a personality cult. Discontent erupted in riots last February that were among the worst in recent years when the still unsolved murder of Foreign Minister Robert Ouko, whom some Kenyans suspect was killed on government orders, coincided with the decontrol of food prices.

Though still confined to a small, urban elite, a movement for multiparty democracy has gained strength in the past three months. For the most part, Moi has tolerated the lively debate, but his security police have harassed those who have spoken out. Staring down Kenya's foreign benefactors, who supply nearly 30% of Nairobi's budget, will not be so easy. While in Washington recently, Ambassador Hempstone says, he was assured that aid to Africa would not be diluted for the moment -- but that he was right to be concerned.