Word: odinga
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Previously a model nation for the rest of Africa both politically and economically, Kenya has in recent weeks devolved into bloody, ethnically-fueled chaos, leaving an estimated 500 people dead, and hundreds of thousands displaced. As the crisis has deepened, some—including Raila Odinga, the opposition presidential candidate who was ruled the looser in the recent election—have called for foreign intervention to stabilize the country and correct the power-grab that seems to have occurred. At present, however, such a move by the United States would be counterproductive and should not be attempted...
...chaos in Kenya broke out after the elections of December 23rd. [see correction below] According to election officials, incumbent president Mwai Kibaki narrowly beat Odinga in an election that Odinga and many foreign nations claim was rigged. Building resentment towards the Kikuyu, the ethnic group that has dominated Kenyan politics since independence and to which Kibaki belongs, erupted as angry citizens killed more than 300 people before New Years day. Now more than a quarter million Kenyans have been internally displaced...
...psychology of the bloodletting that has killed more than 500 Kenyans and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes may remain a mystery. Other questions are easier to answer. The immediate cause? A civilian coup by Kibaki, following a close race with challenger Odinga in the Dec. 27 general election. Three days after the vote, on live television, paramilitary police stormed the Kenyatta International Conference Center, where the vote was being counted and Odinga had a substantial lead. Minutes later, the head of the election commission declared Kibaki the winner. Kibaki was sworn in later the same day. That...
After a week of violence, Kibaki and Odinga came under heavy international pressure--and intensive lobbying by African leaders like Tutu and Ghanaian President John Kufuor and by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer--to reach some sort of compromise. But the question of who would rule was unresolved, leaving many Kenyans worried that the furies unleashed by the stolen election would lurk close to the surface, ready to break out at any time...
...Studies in Washington who was in Kenya for the vote. "They have been singularly ineffective." In Kenya the IMF and the World Bank suspended aid in 2006 but later resumed it. Threats to withdraw U.S. and other aid appear to have persuaded Kibaki to offer to share power with Odinga...