After Kenya vote drama, secessionist talk enters mainstream
JOHANNESBURG — During Kenya’s election upheaval, a few protesters displayed images of the flag of the “People’s Republic of Kenya,” a notional breakaway state. Some posted online images of Kenya divided into two nations along ethnic lines, reflecting a growing sense of marginalization in some opposition strongholds despite some progress in allocating more rights and resources to aggrieved communities.
In another new challenge, Mombasa Gov. Hassan Joho, another governor and more than a dozen lawmakers have revived old calls for coastal counties to secede, alleging discrimination by the national government since Kenya’s independence from British rule in 1963. Critics have dismissed the call as political posturing in the wake of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s disputed election win on Oct. 26, but the rhetoric highlights the skepticism of some Kenyans about the unity of one of Africa’s most influential nations.
However unlikely, secession is “an idea that was extremely marginal, and now it’s gone mainstream,” said Abdullahi Boru, a political analyst in Kenya.
Recent independence bids in Spain’s Catalonia region and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish area ran up against the power of the state, and the bloodshed that accompanied the path to statehood in African nations including Eritrea and South Sudan is a measure of the toll of some secessionist bids.