11 min read. Moi’s misrule neutered parliament, turned the courts into his puppets, and the bureaucracy into his handmaid but if his life leaves behind a lesson, it is in the codification of the Kenyan constitution so that the country need never again be subject to the whims of one person.
9 min read. For the sake of Kenya, both Raila Odinga and William Ruto should step aside and let someone who has a clean governance record vie for the top leadership in 2022. This would make the Uhuru succession politics less toxic and less polarised. It would also, hopefully, usher in much-needed reforms.
8 min read. The main talking point of his speech to the nation two weeks ago was Kenyatta’s directive asking the national Treasury to release Sh500 million to the New Kenya Co-operative Creameries (New KCC) to purchase milk from farmers, and another Sh575 million to revamp two of its processing plants in Kenyatta’s central Kenya political base. The dairy farmers’ woes are blamed on cheap milk imports from Uganda but why the Kenyan market is attracting Ugandan milk has little to do with Uganda’s demand-supply balance, and everything to do with Kenya’s consumer price which is a reflection of the...
6 min read. A type of politician, blunt and openly estranged from the truth—part performer and often entertainer—has become more influential in public affairs since 2013. This is a global phenomenon as the neo-liberal economic model fails vast swathes of the citizenry who have come to the realisation that companies, or cartels masquerading as companies, are today far more powerful than governments, judiciaries, parliaments and other governance institutions.
7 min read. A never-ending cycle of killing and looting has left South Sudan fragile and impoverished. Moreover, a kleptocratic class of politicians and generals at the top with deep ties to “international partners” has been benefitting from the conflict, which could explain why Africa’s youngest nation remains in a permanent state of political instability.
7 min read. What India’s Prime Minister forgets – and what the mass protests in Indian cities demonstrate – is that India’s secularist democracy has survived more than 70 years because Indians decided that religion was too personal and too precious to be left to the whims of the state.
8 min read. The former president of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, has dismissed as “nonsensical” any suggestion that Africa may have over-borrowed, saying instead that with better debt management and higher domestic revenue mobilisation, the continent can take on more debt. But Kaberuka fails to make the link between the increased borrowing and the revenue problem.
9 min read. During the political standoff that followed the 2017 presidential election, the National Super Alliance (NASA) espoused a road map that would lead to a political settlement through the formation of a transitional government that would have spearheaded the process of building a national consensus on political reforms. But in place of a Jubilee-NASA institutional engagement came the Handshake, a commitment by Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga in their personal capacities, which has culminated in the recently released Building Bridges Initiative Report, an underwhelming document that underscores the failure of the two principals to deliver the new political...
8 min read. Rising rape cases in Indian cities have sparked women’s movements that are claiming public spaces for themselves and defying a culture that says that a woman’s place is in the home. RASNA WARAH examines how gender-sensitive urban planning and design can deter potential rapists.
8 min read. Six years of fiscal profligacy have finally caught up with the Jubilee administration. Money is short, it now admits, and the begging bowl is out. The IMF has been in town and will be back again. But the cure could be worse than the disease as Jubilee prepares to don an IMF straightjacket for the remainder of its term.
