Thousands of young men came streaming out of Kibera, a shantytown of one million people, waving sticks, smashing shacks, burning tires and hurling stones. Soldiers poured into the streets to meet them. In other areas across the country, gangs went house to house, dragging people of certain tribes out of their homes and clubbing them to death.The young men in quesion have just been screwed out of an election. Again. They've watched their tribe get passed over for the perks of power in almost every election since Kenya's independence. This weekend their candidate should have won, as he was leading a diverse coalition of Kenyans who have been similarly screwed over by President Mwai Kibaki's party.
But Kibaki, an old man who refuses to share power along tribal lines, rigged the vote. He always struck me as the kind of crooked politician who didn't think he was really corrupt. I thought Kibaki would blanche at the idea of falsifying his own election.
I gave the old idiot too much credit.
