Marginalization and political participation on the Kenya coast: the 2013 elections

Abstract

At the coast, the run-up to Kenya's 2013 elections was dominated by fears of violence and the calls for a boycott by the secessionist Mombasa Republican Council. However, the elections passed off largely peacefully, and coastal turnout was significantly higher than in any previous election. This article argues that the secessionist campaign was internally incoherent, and undermined by divisions within the ‘coasterian’ community it claimed to represent; and that a politics of patronage encouraged electoral participation, particularly because so many levels of political office were being contested at the same time. Despite this participation, however, the sense of marginalization remains very powerful among many people at the coast.