Can People Power Change Kenya?
Resolving the election crisis of 2007-08 is one thing, argues GRCA Research Associate Stephen Ndegwa, and addressing underlying injustices is quite another. Ndegwa and an engaged UCLA audience debate the likelihood of significant change from below. Kevin Matthews The incumbent government is one that has no problem unleashing the state. During the question period following a talk on campus this Monday sponsored by the UCLA Globalization Research Center–Africa (GRCA), about five members of an audience of 40 argued that ordinary Kenyans may be poised to wrest the political initiative away from elites, even as negotiations to end a six-week-old post-election crisis continue between the rival parties. The speaker, however, counted himself a pessimist on prospects for “people power.” “We have to remember the singular brutality of the state,” said Stephen Ndegwa, a research associate at the GRCA and a Kenyan. “The incumbent government is one that has no problem unleashing the state,” he added
