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The Conversation
Politics
Westen K Shilaho, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for PanAfrican Thought and Conversation (IPATC), University of Johannesburg

Kenya's politicians continue to use ethnicity to divide and rule – 60 years after independence

Protesters in Kisumu confront police officers after Kenya's disputed 2017 elections. Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images

Since independence in 1963, Kenya’s politicians have fed and manipulated ethnicity to win elections.

With some 40-odd ethnic groups, Kenya is a country of ethnic minorities – it has no single dominant community. During elections, political parties and candidates do raise policy issues, but ethnicity, or tribalism as it’s popularly called in Kenya, is the default vote-hunting strategy.

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