Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate ethnocentrism as the key cause of underdevelopment in Narok County in Kenya. The study was guided by the following objectives: To establish whether personalization of power causes underdevelopment in Narok County. To investigate the extent to which ethnic nature of politics causes underdevelopment in Narok County. To assess the extent to which credibility of electoral management body causes underdevelopment in Narok County. The study utilized descriptive survey design. A sample of 10% (50 respondents) of the total population was obtained for the study. The researcher used stratified random sampling to select the sample that represented the whole population. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used during data collection from respondents. Data collected was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. After data collection, editing was done, then coding to facilitate data entry into the computer system to facilitate analysis. Excel spread sheet was used to compute the frequencies and percentages. This enabled the generalization of the results. Results were presented using percentages, frequencies, tables and charts. From the summary of the findings, it was found that ethnicity can escalate as a result of incredible electoral management body in the negative sense. On the other hand, electoral management body can be readily exploited to serve the selfish purpose of an individual politician, a political party or a government. . The study concluded that if Kenya wants to salvage itself and bring back the social fabric, political cohesiveness and economic stability that it had enjoyed for a while, then its citizens have to cast aside negative ethnicity and selfish interests, and begin to see the positive gains that ethnicity had before they started using ethnicity as a means to the kind of violence and destruction of human lives that was witnessed. The study recommends that Kenya has made certain gains. Primarily, these lie in promulgating a new constitution with a less powerful presidency, guaranteeing the independence of the IEBC (with commissioners selected in a transparent vetting process), and with progressive provisions regarding land management. These gains should be built upon, rather than eroded, in order to eliminate key preconditions for electoral violence.
