IN KENYA, POLARISING ELECTION RE-RUN
MUHORONI: Kenya’s repeat presidential election, boycotted this week by millions, has reignited long-running tensions between ethnic communities in some areas, leading inhabitants of one small village in the west to pick up traditional arms on Saturday.
In the bright green sugarcane fields where the western Nyanza region rolls toward the Nandi hills, two tribes — the Luo and the Kalenjin — have lived in relative peace for years.
But in the village of Koguta, down the road from the town of Mugoroni in Kisumu County, Thursday’s polarizing vote reignited old grievances.
The stand-off, defused by an emergency intervention of three county governors, was a stark reminder of how easily Kenya’s months-long political cris could spark the type of ethnic violence that killed 1,200 people after a flawed 2007 vote.
On one side of Koguta are Kalenjins, here ardent supporters of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Kalenjin deputy, William Ruto. But the Luos across the road support opposition leader Raila Odinga, who called for a boycott of the vote because he said it would not be fair.
Some of the Luos here fought police to stop ballot boxes being delivered. The Luo accused the Kalenjin of stealing cattle and burning their sugarcane crop in revenge, prompting both sides to grab machetes, spears, bows and arrows, and wooden clubs.
“This is an area where they tried to come in with ballot boxes, there was serious resistance, so that was the genesis of all this enmity between the Kalenjins and the Luos,” said Julius Genga, a county legislator, as a colleague stood atop a sports utility vehicle to calm a crowd of men with spears.
The opposition dismissed the vote as a “sham” although Kenyatta’s supporters say it was legitimate. Protests stopped four counties from opening polling stations at all. Only a third of voters turned up, and the opposition is likely to challenge the poll in court.
“This has to do with politics,” said Collins Owuor, 21, holding a machete. “Before politics we did not have problems with these people.”