Negotiating the Net 4/1/2005 - 1 – ________________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 7 KENYA: DIFFUSION, DEMOCRACY, AND DEVELOPMENT Introduction Five years ago, Kenyans who enjoyed Internet access were thought of as members of an elite. The majority of Kenyans only knew about the Internet from television or from employees of International organizations who used the Internet as part of their work. Computers were expensive and therefore beyond the reach of most Kenyans. Practically speaking at $200 per month for ten hours of access in 1996, the Internet was in 1996 simply beyond reach. Countrywide, only 4,000 users could afford access. Today, the Internet touches the lives of many people in Kenya’s urban areas. Cyber cafés can be found in many neighborhoods of Nairobi, secondary towns, and even small outskirts that previously had little or no access. Cyber cafés are now full of patrons using the Internet for a whole range of purposes including e-mail, searching for jobs and schools, chatting, conducting research, and enhancing awareness of HIV/AIDS. Although this chapter addresses key negotiation issues it also focuses on the relationship between Internet diffusion and the growth of democracy; this process culminated in the defeat of longtime incumbent President Daniel Arap Moi in December 2002. The relationship between Internet diffusion and democratization has been one of mutual push-and-pull. The struggle to establish multi-party democracy in Kenya in the early 1990s created both opportunities and demands for Internet use. Furthermore, the Internet provided a relatively safe forum in which activists could express dissenting views against the government and its state owned institutions. The former ruling party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), had been in power for 39 years before it was defeated in the 2002 elections. KANU ruled through fear, and most of the citizenry was not organized to oppose the government. Kenyans had to accept whatever the government offered in the way of public sector services and, not surprisingly, public education, security, welfare, and communications were dismal. The Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC) was tightly controlled by KANU for the purposes of spreading KANU propaganda and generating much-needed foreign currency revenue. KPTC’s duty to deliver adequate telecommunications service was overshadowed by its political loyalty to KANU; the latter determined the survival of KPTC’s top management. With the opening of the political system in the 1990s, Information Technology pioneers – and Internet promoters in particular – were able to capitalize on political and technological changes to introduce the Internet into Kenyan. One of the rallying points for promoting democracy in Kenya, as well as the Internet, was demanding accountability from state owned institutions. In December 2002, the opposition National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) won national elections by a landslide. Leading Negotiating the Net 4/1/2005 - 2 – ________________________________________________________________________ presidential candidates, including current President Mwai Kibaki and leader of the KANU opposition Uhuru Kenyatta, utilized the Internet extensively to communicate their platforms and policies to the Kenyan electorate, both at home and abroad. The newly elected government was eager to privatize and liberalize the telecommunications sector. The discussion of multi-party democracy which follows demonstrates how the struggle for political reform had a major impact on Internet diffusion; similarly, we will see how the spread of the Internet influenced the political system. Background Kenya is located in East Africa and has a population of over 30 million people. In 1960, KANU, the party of independence, was formed from three existing parties: the Kenya Africa Union, the National People’s Convention Party, and the Kenya Independence Movement. KANU was instrumental in uniting the country and negotiating with the British for the country’s independence. When independence was achieved in 1963, KANU leader Jomo Kenyatta became Kenya’s first president. Kenyatta was an African nationalist and supported independence and democracy for all African nations. His Vice President, Daniel arap Moi, became head of state when Kenyatta died in 1978. Moi was from a small ethnic group and would have had a much easier time maintaining unity within the country. Moi, however consolidated his power by structuring his government around patronage ties. He ruled by divisive tactics which pitted different groups against each other. In 1982, KANU was officially declared the only legal party in Kenya a status it maintained until December 1991 when other political parties were legalized. The Kenyan government was under internal and external pressure to allow multi-party democracy. Such pressures were indeed prevalent throughout the continent at the beginning of the 1990s.The Moi government, however, continued to use its power to undermine the opposition, which remained fragmented until the 2002 elections. From the mid-1980s to late 2002 the Moi government was under increasingly acute pressure from an economy in dire straits (due, in part, to a global recession), loss of tourism revenues (exacerbated by the U.S. Embassy bombings), and significant cutbacks in donor funding. During Moi’s rule, political and civil freedoms, including access to information, were repressed. The political system thrived on limiting the citizenry’s access to information, and as late as 1997 it was illegal for any government ministry to maintain an Internet connection! It was not until 1998 that the law was changed to allow government ministries to exchange electronic communications with other governments in the region. This reform only occurred because pressure was applied by a regional organization that at the time was chaired by Kenya. Under Moi, most government owned institutions, including KPTC, were largely unprofitable and depended on government subsidies. The majority of state owned institutions were headed by political appointees who owed their allegiance to the office of the president and paid little attention to maintaining sound business principles. During KANU’s thirty-nine years in power, and as the single party from 1969 to 1991, political Negotiating the Net 4/1/2005 - 3 – ________________________________________________________________________ patronage was ruled the operative motive for state enterprises. By the early 1990s, however, KANU lacked the revenue to distribute patronage as easily or as widely as it had in the past. Kenya’s declining economy meant that the government was unable to underwrite unprofitable public enterprises. With respect to Internet diffusion, this meant that only incremental progress could be made. The increasingly open political climate of the 1990s forced KPTC and other government owned parastatals to rationalize their operations and to address consumer demand for improved services. Each reform by KPTC required the prior concurrence of KANU, and obtaining this required negotiations and pressure by Internet users for better services. Eventually, Internet diffusion affected ordinary people as diverse as arts and crafts entrepreneurs, students, and children. Amazingly, in 2004 it is not unusual to find third grade students in Nairobi who have Yahoo accounts and who engage adults in interesting discussions on key international events like the Iraq war. Without large scale political liberalization, access to the Internet and freedom of expression and communications would not be the norm in Kenya. Critical Negotiation Issues The struggle to build multi-party democracy in Kenya coincided with the spread of the Internet in the country and during this period four critical issues had to be negotiated before Internet diffusion could occur. The first issue was negotiating the initial ISP licenses, which eventually led to the formation of three Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Prior to 1994, KPTC monopolize the ISP market in Kenya. Between 1994 and 1998, three ISPs were licensed. The licensing process was regulated by KPTC, and the ISPs were forced to pay the telecom excessive fees for access to leased lines. The three ISPs survived KPTC’s excessive access charges by using various tactics, as described in CNI 1 below. Customers, in turn, paid higher fees and smaller ISPs could not make a start in the industry because of high entry barriers. Between 1998 and 2000, the monthly cost of renting a 64K leased line had decreased from $12,500 to $4,500, and cyber cafes multiplied. 1 By 2004, the cost of renting a 64K leased line decreased further to $400 a month, and some 65 2 ISPs and IAPs were operating in a fiercely competitive market with a user base of 500,000. The second issue, Negotiating New Access Costs, arose after politicians and businessmen realized the Internet’s potential to create wealth. With the establishment of Jambonet, the national backbone, in 1998, the sector began witnessing tremendous growth, and new players expressed interest in profiting from the Internet. Negotiating the Communications Bill was the third, and probably the most contentious, CNI. The Communications Bill, passed in 1998, split the telecom monopoly into three entities and established an independent regulator as required by the World 1 Kenyans Flock Cyber-Cafes To Make International Calls; The Daily Nation 6 February,2001 http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation 2 http://www.brainyatlas.com/print/ke.html