APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 75 Violence as a Bargaining Tool: The Role of Youths in the 2007 Kenyan Elections 75 preserving elements of the status quo that protected the interests of white settlers while ignoring key demands by African freedom fighters for access to land.3 This situation would later be exacerbated by class divisions and internal political conflicts among Kenyan elites.4 Because of ideological differences among the freedom fighters—for instance, some favored capitalism, while others advocated socialism—as independent Kenya’s first head of state, KANU leader Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, combined political prudence and tactical competence in efforts to consolidate power.5 Kenyatta concentrated on luring the opposing KADU (led by Daniel arap Moi, a Kalenjin) into KANU under the banner of ‘Nation Building for African Economic Prosperity’, a move that would also, not coincidentally, eliminate political competition for KANU. Eventually KADU dissolved and merged with KANU—essentially establishing one-party rule, with little opposition—which affected the functioning of the parliament and compromised the efficacy of checks and balances (including restraints on the executive), political pluralism, and political participation at all levels.6 The new arrangement reduced political avenues and options, securing succession among the ruling political and economic elites.7 In 1966 Jaramogi Odinga Odinga—Kenya’s first vice president and a Luo who had had ideological differences with Kenyatta—resigned from KANU and formed the socialist Kenya People’s Union (KPU). In elections held in 1966, KANU won twentyone of twenty-nine seats. The KPU was banned in 1969. KANU ultimately created an imperial presidency, underpinned by state institutions. Power and wealth-creation processes favored those who belonged to the GikuyuEmbu-Meru Association (GEMA), an ethnic-based organization founded by Gikuyu, Embu, and Meru politicians and powerbrokers seeking to consolidate wealth and power in the central Kenya region. The group’s representatives surrounded Kenyatta and sought to isolate or exclude anti-Kenyatta elements within and outside the government that might challenge presidential decrees, provincial administration machinery, and institutional authoritarianism. The process and administration set in place enhanced the accumulation of wealth by a relatively few politically connected individuals among certain ethnic groups and led to the neglect of other groups. Abductions and assassinations were included among the methods used to deal with those who challenged the prevailing order. With time, youths, the poor, and others excluded from the system—but wanting a voice in their governance and politicians attentive to their economic needs—would become pawns used by the politically powerful and wealthy to maintain their positions of privilege. The violence surrounding the 2007 elections is the result of this long-running dynamic. 3. Representatives of the British government, Africans, and white settlers in Kenya met in London in 1963 at Lancaster House to finalize constitutional arrangements and the transition to self-governance. Abdalla Bujra (ed.), Democratic Transition in Kenya: The Struggle from Liberal to Social Democracy (Nairobi, Development Policy Management Forum, 2005), 17–19. 4. Bujra, Democratic Transition in Kenya. 5. Charles N. Mwaura, ‘Political succession and related conflicts in Kenya’, paper prepared for a conference on conflict resolution in the greater Horn of Africa, sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development, Nairobi, 27–28 March 1997, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACH217.pdf. 6. Ibid. The constitution would be amended in 1982 to officially declare Kenya a one-party state. 7. Mwaura, ‘Political succession and related conflicts’.