Authoritarian Experience and Electoral Success: Evidence from Kenya

• In Event: Authoritarian Diasporas: Causes and Effects of Authoritarian Elite Dispersion

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, many African countries have instituted multiparty elections and experienced electoral turnover. Despite this apparent change, politics in many places remains dominated by politicians who defected from the former authoritarian ruling party and won power on rival party tickets. Kenya is seen as a paradigmatic case of this kind of “authoritarian diaspora.” After the defeat of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) in 2002, the party entered into rapid decline, yet the country has yet to elect a president or deputy president who did not previously hold office in KANU. Former KANU officeholders also comprise the bulk of cabinet appointees since 2002. But do ordinary parliamentary candidates share the electoral resilience of prominent “diasporans,” or do voters generally punish candidates for their authoritarian pasts? Drawing on original data, this paper charts the electoral fates of all former KANU members of parliament from independence to the present. We also assess the extent to which the ranks of Kenyan opposition parties were comprised of losers of KANU party primaries in 1988 and 1991. We find that diasporans are pervasive and more likely to win election than other candidates, a finding that has implications for understandings of democratization and party development in hybrid regimes.

Authors

• Adrienne LeBas, American University

• Kyle Gray, American University School of Public Affairs