| | The long awaited Kenyan general elections finally took place on 29 December 1992. Their importance lay in the fact that, apart from the 'little general elections' held in the aftermath of the split in the ruling Kenyan African National Union (KANU) and the subsequent founding of the opposition Kenya Peoples Union (KPU), they were the first multi-party general elections since political independence in 1963. Moreover, they present an example of an attempt to restructure an authoritarian state through imperialist political conditionalities. The implications of this for the form and content of democracy are bound to constitute important areas of debate. For the moment however, whether democratic institutions develop out of the old regime or not will depend on a number of factors, not least the balance of forces which have emerged from the electoral process. Thus preliminary assessment looks at the results and prospects for the immediate future. |
