African Media Barometer KENYA 2012 Summary In August 2010, Kenyans celebrated the promulgation of their new Constitution as an instrument that would bring significant change to the social, economic and political landscape of the country. The 2010 Constitution is seen as one of the most democratic instruments in the region as it provides for sweeping changes through the most important structures of governance. The new Constitution establishes a bi-cameral parliament, with a legislative assembly and a Senate, restricts the powers of the President, gives the Senate the authority to exert oversight on the activities of the Executive and even provides for public participation in the conduct of parliament. It paves the way for muchneeded land reform and gives Kenyans a bill of rights. There is a startling contradiction in the implementation of the contents of the Constitution – on the one hand there have been sweeping changes, but on the other there has been a delay in aligning outdated and restrictive legislation to specific constitutional guarantees. There are ongoing discussions to align the Media Act and Independent Communication Bill of Kenya to the new Constitution, but talking is where it stops. A draft Freedom of Information (FOI) Act that has been ready for many years is still to be tabled in parliament. This Constitution was adopted on the heels of the violence that rocked Kenya soon after the disputed 2007 presidential election which resulted in the loss of 1500 lives and the displacement of just under 1 million people. This bloodshed highlighted the political and ethnic tensions that had always been bubbling just under the surface of this vibrant and robust country. So the celebrated Constitution is also regarded as an instrument that will reform the social landscape to foster harmony. The sensitivity around ethnic and tribal divisions manifests itself in hate speech as contained in the Constitution. Hate speech is defined in broad terms thus rendering the definition vulnerable to the whims of people in power who want to increase tensions between political parties or different ethnic groupings. The relationship between different ethnic groups is still fragile and so journalists practise a great deal of self-censorship in the manner in which they report issues affecting different communities. “Since the 2008 violence, you will hear things like ‘two communities’ without any mention of which communities these are,” to avoid upsetting any one group. AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER KENYA 2012 7