The International Crisis Group (ICG) has warned of the increased risk of localised violence in the Rift Valley counties during the August election.

In its 30 May report, ICG notes that the widespread post-election violence of 2007-2008 is unlikely to recur because of the strengthened Kikuyu–Kalenjin alliance headed by President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.

The Rift Valley was the scene of the worst violence in this period, mostly between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities. The alliance between their leaders — which was designed to keep them out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) — will stand the test of the 2017 elections.

Less optimistically, the ICG warns of the high risk of localised violence in the Rift Valley’s mixed ethnic counties. There are three reasons for this:

The Rift Valley’s closely mixed ethnic demographic is a product of the resettlement of the Kikuyu people on the fertile lands of the Rift Valley that had been taken from other ethnic groups during Britain’s establishment of colonial plantations. Kikuyu — who had been employed on the farms and possessed well-connected elites — were the main beneficiaries of the post-independence land redistribution programmes. Resentment that was originally reserved for the British was then transferred to the Kikuyu.

A second cause is the devolution of power from central to county level. The new public offices that have been established in this change mean that the election spoils will be fought for — literally as well as figuratively — at the local level. ICG identifies Uasin Gishu, Narok, and Nakuru as high profile areas where ethnic tensions are likely to inflame electoral campaigns. They also note that seven of the 19 counties identified as most at risk of election-related violence by the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) are in the Rift Valley.

Organisations like the NCIC — which was established to police ethnic hate speech — and the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, reveal the local grievances space which previously fed into the 2007-2008 violence. The problem is that their findings have been widely ignored at the local political level.

The implications for investors is that much greater attention needs to be paid to understanding issues at the county, and not just the national, level. Investor analysis often focuses on Kenya’s macro indicators, such as: the responsiveness of the government to foreign direct investment; the historic Anglo-Kenyan partnerships; and the lack of dependence on commodities, which is a good indicator of economic stability and diversity. Many security risks are, however, understood and mitigated at the local rather than at a macro level.

This is an article from our fortnightly East Africa Politics & Security publication.