Electoral Politics and the Construction of the Itare Dam in the Mau Forest, Kenya

Abstract

The 2017 hotly contested and once nullified General Elections in Kenya revolved around three key issues: resource, poverty and the marginalization. To the majority, it was a protest vote against the Kenyattaregime. The mega national projects that were initiated by his government were widely seen as ‘gifts’ tobeused to entice the voters. But as the outcome of the elections show, the main opposition party andconservationists successfully took advantage in using these environmentally unfriendly projects to agitatepeople’s protests as it were for the case here, dam constructions in the Mau water tower. Informed by the patterns of local voting, the paper demonstrates that prominent economic and political conflicts between inequities state interests and indigenous peoples livelihoods. The project may spur economic growth through brought water revenues, hydro-electric power and major infrastructure in the area but the benefits to people of the Mau forest is unclear, these forest people lost arable and grazing land and have experienced drastic negative changes in livelihood conditions.