Question

Question 13

Answer 1

When it was announced that Mwai Kibaki had won the Kenyan presidential election again in 2007, the opposition denounced what they believed to be rigged elections. The political crisis that ensued, lasting from December 2007 to February 2008, also turned into a recession and a humanitarian catastrophe.

While there were non-violent protests against the new president, this victory set fire to the existing ethnic tensions in Kenya, and Kibaki's opponents turned their anger against the Kikuyu people, the community Kibaki was from. Hundreds of Kikuyu who lived outside their traditional residence areas were killed. Many members of other communities who did not have attributed land of their own decided it was a good time to express their frustration against the Kikuyu, who had been given more land than them. These landless communities wanted revenge for the land they felt the Kikuyu had stolen from them.