Kenyan Elections!

Yesterday were the long-awaited Kenyan Elections! Hip hip! Hooray!

Hip hip!

Hooray!

Unlike the 2007-8 Kenyan elections, where hundreds of thousands of Kenyans were displaced and up to a thousand killed, these elections are (crossyourfingers) looking a lot better. About 15 have been killed, but it does not (yet at least) look like the kind of mass panic of five years ago.

Mad props to the brainchild of my former student, the I Am Kenyan project

My biggest concern, however, is that the root cause of the election violence, ethnicity, is still very much present. My Kenyan students have expressed a lot of concern that their parents vote solely based on tribal loyalties. And I will allow a Kenyan student of mine to discuss that in more detail later, so for now, let's just talk about the fun stuff: the winner!

It seems that the likely winner (60% votes still pending, this is NOT like CNN the night of the elections like in the US) will be... Uhuru Kenyatta!

Sound familiar?

Well, if you've studied or ever been to Kenya, you might recognize that name, Kenyatta...

like Jomo Kenyatta International Airport!

Jomo Kenyatta Airport

or, most famously, the father of independent Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta himself.

Jomo Kenyatta

And yep, as you might have guessed, Uhuru is his son.

Sound like the Kennedy's or the Bush's?

Perhaps. But more concerning is that Uhuru Kenyatta (whose name means fittingly "Freedom") was accused by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Oops.

And while many people want to accuse the BUSH Administration of such crimes (start with the website http://www.bushtothehague.org/ for more info), ICC accusations are no joke.

And the winner of this election is looking like the man himself, Uhuru Kenyatta.

Uhuru Kenyatta

Good luck, Kenya.