A Testing Time for Kenya

Voters head to the polls to elect a president as inflation bites and a debt crisis looms in the background

- David Malingha and David Herbling

Kenyans head to the polls on Aug. 9 to choose a new president in a contest pitting fifth-time contender Raila Odinga against William Ruto, a challenger who’s anchored his campaign on a rags to-riches story.

It’s poised to be one of the closest elections in Kenya’s three-decade-old multiparty democracy, largely because of the involvement of outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta—the son of the country’s first president—who’s been in power for nine years. The incumbent reneged on a promise to back his 55-year-old deputy, Ruto, and has instead thrown his weight behind Odinga, a former prime minister. Odinga, 77, ran against Kenyatta in 2017 in what was a bitter election marred by violence, but the two later reconciled.

Kenya’s population of 51 million includes more than 40 ethnic groupings. Divisions among some of the biggest communities have been the cause of election-related violence in the past, notably when more than 1,100 people died in clashes that followed a disputed vote in December 2007.