Kenya’s Election Season Kicks Off With Ominous Signs
As commuters in the heart of Nairobi hustle past one another on River Road at the end of a recent workday, young men are buying machetes in a hardware shop before boarding a bus. The tools aren’t for clearing brush or making campsites, chopping food or splitting firewood. Peter Mwangi, who runs an electronics shop, is arming himself in case of election chaos. “I know there will be violence. I need to ready myself,” says Mwangi, holding a giant knife. “In the 2007 elections, we were not prepared. We were attacked, and I lost some of my relatives. But this time, it will not happen.”
Mwangi says his shop was looted during the violence in 2007 that followed Mwai Kibaki, who is accused by the opposition of taking power through vote-rigging. More than 1,300 were killed and about 600,000 were displaced from their homes during those protests.
