SUMMARY
Kenya gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1963. This was achieved through a liberation struggle lead by Jomo Kenyatta who also became the country's first president in 1964. Kenyatta led the country until his death in 1978. He was succeeded by Daniel Arap Moi who led the country until 2002. Up until 1991, Moi’s party Kenya African National Union (KANU) was the sole legal party. Upon pressure by international donors, Moi allowed for mulitpartism, and the first multiparty elections were held in 1992. During the 1990s, the opposition did not succeed in replacing Moi. In 2002, Moi stepped down and Mwai Kibaki from the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) party became the new president of Kenya.
In 2007, new elections were held, after which Kibaki was announced as the winner. The main opposition candidate Raila Odinga from the Orange Democratic Movement ODM deemed this outcome as unfair and not free. The dispute was eventually settled by a power-sharing deal in February 2008, negotiated by Kofi Annan. This agreement gave Odinga the post as prime minister, while Kibaki remaind President.
With the exceptions of the 2002 elections, all elections since 1992 were clouded by a high level of violence and could not be considered as free and fair. Violence often broke out along ethnic lines, mainly because candidates used ethnicity as a mean to gather support. The Government of Kenya has also on several occasions carried out one-sided violence in connection to elections, something which was particularly prominent after the 2007 general elections. During the more recent 2017 general elections, the Kenyan police was also responsible for the killing of dozens of civilians, of which many were killed in connection to protests or demonstrations.
In response to increased insecurity along the Kenya-Somali border, including Al-Shabaab kidnappings of tourists in the Lamu area, the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) launched the operation Linda Nchi against in October 2011, entering Somalia. As the operation ended the following year, Kenyan forces were officially integrated into the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). Consequently, the Government of Kenya is seen as a secondary warring party in the intrastate conflict over government in Somalia. In response, Al-Shabaab gradually increased its activities inside Kenya. In 2015, al-Shabaab announced its intention to "“liberate the Muslim Lands of Northeastern Province and the Coast from Kenyan occupation” and since then, the Government of Kenya has also been involved in an intrastate conflict with al-Shabaab on Kenyan territory.
As of 2018, the Kenyan government, through AMISOM, continued to provide secondary warring support to the Government of Somalia in the fight against al-Shabaab. In 2017, it was reported that Kenya contributed 3,664 troops to AMISOM.
