Pastor Matthew Mwalwa well recalls the moment that he received a most unexpected phone call. The office of President Kibaki of Kenya was on the line. “Could the Honourable President come and speak to his flock?” intoned a husky voice from State House.

“This year we’ve seen the Government, Kibaki and his ministers, going to churches like they’ve never been before,” Mr Mwalwa said. “We live next to State House and it was his first time in the last five years to come and worship here, and when he stood up to speak, and said ‘I’m asking you to vote me back’, it was obvious why.”

The run-up to Kenya’s presidential elections today has been marked by a mixture of Western-style electioneering, allegations of corruption and gigantic rallies. Violence has never been far from the surface; at least 70 people have been killed in election-related clashes. Candidates have shamelessly whipped up tribal enmity among the country’s 14 million voters. Many people have ignored them but the race is now on a knife-edge. Opinion polls give Raila Odinga, the main challenger, a slight lead. Fears are growing of more violence if the outcome is a narrow victory for either side. Tensions are running high.

Yesterday a mob killed at least three policemen in Mr Odinga’s stronghold of Nyanza province. According to KTN, the state broadcaster, supporters of Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) claimed that the Government was planning to dress police as members of various parties to rig the vote.

President Kibaki, 76, immediately denied the claims and said that the poll would be free and fair. The President, a man not known for his sorties to meet the citizens, has been forced to take to the campaign trail to try to win a second term and avoid the humiliation of becoming one of the few incumbents of an African nation to lose an election despite engineering five years of economic growth.

That in itself could be his greatest legacy. It represents a remarkable turn-around since the 24-year presidency of Daniel arap Moi, the quintessential African big man, came to an end in 2002. Mr Moi’s cronies tortured and killed opponents in the basement of a rust-orange skyscraper known as Nyayo House in central Nairobi. Few people dared to criticise, let alone vote against, the former schoolteacher whose rule was marked by graft and mismanagement.

Newspapers and state broadcasters were laughably biased. Now Kenyans show no fear of debating politics and pouring scorn on their leaders. Anne Wanjohi, a civil servant, said: “Our country was really going down; it was finished. Kibaki has brought us where we are now and we are ready. Whoever takes over the Government, we will not allow that person to take us back.” On policy there is little to distinguish the candidates. They have all pledged to create jobs, fight corruption, bring free education to all, improve healthcare and build more roads. All are also equally tainted by the past. A recent report from the Coalition for Accountable Political Financing asserted that all had funded nearly two thirds of their campaigns through corruption.

Kibaki supporters have played on fears that Mr Odinga, 62, would quash free enterprise. Mr Odinga, the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the trade-unionist independence hero and first vice-president of Kenya, was educated in East Germany and called his first son Fidel. Like all Kenyan politicians he is a wealthy businessman and dropped the socialist rhetoric long ago. Nevertheless, as a Luo from the poor Lake Victoria region of Western Kenya, he appeals to marginalised communities much more than the elitist Mr Kibaki, who is a Kikuyu.

“This is going to be an election for Kenyans, not for their leaders. The candidates have to be on their toes to win. It is going to be close,” Koki Muli, of the Institute for Education in Democracy, told The Times.

Mwalimu Mati, an anti-corruption campaigner, said: “There was a time when you used to buy elections outright. But now it seems to be a bit more difficult. Kenya is democratising, so it’s harder and harder to guarantee the cooperation of all the people you’d need to rig elections.”

Main contenders

Raila Odinga

— Born in 1945 into foremost Kenyan political dynasty: his father was first Kenyan vice-president

— Spent nine years in jail, six in solitary confinement, for protesting against one-party rule

— Served three years in parliament, from 2002, before being dismissed for campaigning against Mr Kibaki in 2005 constitutional referendum

Mwai Kibaki

— Current President, born in 1931. His father, a tobacco trader, named him “big tobacco leaf”

— First African to graduate with first-class degree from LSE

— Finance Minister 1970-83 and vice-president until 1991, then launched Democratic Party

Sources: statehousekenya.go.ke; kenyaelections.com; raila07.com; Times archives

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