Kenya: A New Constitution and the President's Role

Kenya's attorney general published a draft constitution May 6. If it is approved in its current form in a popular referendum, the constitution will bring about many changes, such as decentralizing power and putting checks on the president's authority. These changes are meant to reduce the incentives for violence after Kenya's next presidential election, scheduled for December 2012. Kenya and its neighbors want to make sure that violence like that which broke out after the December 2007 presidential election, leading the country to the brink of full-on civil war, does not recur.