Kenya: We Know What We're Doing. Wait, Was That a Gunshot?

All observable evidence shows that Kenya has their crap in one seabag. They have a relatively stable economy, decent education, and they can generally feed themselves. This was the common perception amongst the world powers for much of the last decade or so. Then came the elections of 2007 where the ruling party was way behind in the vote count before they seemed to mysteriously discover more ballots to count and that put them over the top. Riots, explosions, and murder in the streets followed. A thousand dead Kenyans later the rest of the world paused from their morning coffee with a seriously upturned eyebrow.

"Great," thought the world. "We thought we had that one handled. It's hard enough helping Africa without the success stories sliding backward."

Of course, what the election violence pointed out was that the rest of the world really doesn't understand Africa as well as they think they do. So now Kenya has held a national vote on a new constitution and things are moving along nicely. Since the U.S. really needs them as a regional partner in both the War on Terror and our anti-piracy operations, hopefully Kenya will continue to hold it together and move into the promising future that everyone expects of them.