In the year since Daniel arap Moi's 24-year long rule of Kenya ended, the Kenyan economy has seen improvement as the government has fought corruption within itself, particularly in the Kenyan judiciary. This has led to a resurgence in inflows of foreign investment. This investment has been driven both directly by the reduction of government corruption as well as the resulting fall in state interference in the economy as well as the signals that the transition from Mr. Moi's government to a democratically elected government has not resulted in political chaos. However, as reported in the BBC, the recent move by President Mwai Kibaki in dissolving the parties within the 16-party coalition government is likely to hurt the Kenyan economy by eroding confidence in the democratic government and the prospects for future political stability (which heavily influences a major factor in determining foreign investment inflows, macroeconomic stability). One only hopes that the plans for dissolving the parties within the coalition government will not lead to further stifling of the expression of dissenting opinions from Mr. Kibaki within the governing coalition. This would likely lead to more problems than having a single-party government could solve.

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©2003 Richard B. Goud, Jr.
Updated on 30 December 2003 at 00:55 PST