Thinking Democratically: A Comprehensive Approach to Countering and Preventing Shrinking Space

6.
Annexes
Summaries of country case studies on shrinking democratic space
6.1 Kenya
In Kenya, the ruling party has primarily attacked civic space by employing legislative, political and
administrative strategies. Legislative strategies have attempted to chip away at constitutional
guarantees such as freedom of media and freedom of association, through the amendments to the
Kenya Information Communications Act 2013 and the Amendment bill to Statute Law, which sought
to restrict the functioning of NGOs by capping foreign funding to 15% of an organisation’s total
budget. Administrative strategies include the refusal to operationalise laws, the usage of old laws to
harass CSOs and organisational restructuring to inhibit NGOs’ capacity to hold the government
accountable. Political strategies include the intimidation and usage of violence against CSOs and
associations, violently dispersing protests, and the suspension of CSO activities for allegedly failing
to comply with regulations. It also includes hiring bloggers to spread negative messages about CSOs
and threatening to withhold advertising revenue from media houses.
Space for political contestation has so far not come under any serious threat from the state or any
other actor in the political system. The closing of the space is, largely, a function of the party system
characteristics that render it exclusive, unrepresentative and unaccountable to citizens. These party
system characteristics include the leveraging of patronage powers of the presidency and abuse of
incumbency by the ruling party; the opaque mobilisation and utilisation of resources by political
parties; lack of internal party democracy; and mobilisation of support on the basis of ethnicity. They
constitute the root causes of corruption and impunity, the instinct to limit contestation and the
exclusion of marginalized groups.
In the face of these systemic factors limiting democratic space and proactive attacks on civic space,
civil society, the judiciary and smaller political parties have been strong defenders of the rule of law
and constitutionalism. Civil society has adopted multiple strategies to push back against the shrinking
democratic space, including: mobilizing and networking; lobbying and advocacy; public litigation;
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