Fragile Kenya still adrift

(Economist):  Kenya remains east Africa’s commercial hub, yet the bickering and dithering of its dodgy and unwieldy government could ruin what is left of its reputation. "We are sharpening our pangas [machetes],” says a man in a jam-packed matatu, the ubiquitous minibus taxi that is Kenya’s main means of public transport. “It is not if but when” is the commonest answer to the question, “Will political violence resume?” Barely two years after a grubby election that left 1,500 Kenyans dead and several hundred thousand homeless, the country is still dangerously adrift. This week the government was embroiled in yet another quarrel after the prime minister, Raila Odinga, sacked a close-rival-turned-enemy, William Ruto, in a move that the president, Mwai Kibaki, deemed unconstitutional.

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