NAIROBI, Kenya — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, arriving here Saturday during a critical period in this nation's political life, called on President Daniel Arap Moi to follow through on a pledge to end his nearly 23-year rule with free and fair elections.
Powell said the United States will be looking "with great interest" at what happens as Kenya's electoral process unfolds next year.
"We'll be looking for transparency. We'll be looking to every effort on the part of the government to allow there to be full, fair and vigorous opposing views presented through the political structure that exists in Kenya," the secretary said after meeting with Kenyan opposition leaders.
It was one of the most direct admonitions that the United States has delivered to this country, which has long-standing U.S. ties and business connections.
Powell's message, delivered on the third stop of a four-nation African swing, has emerged as a major theme of his trip. A day earlier in South Africa, the secretary warned about the dangers of African leaders holding on to power too long and undermining the political progress needed to turn around the economies of the world's poorest continent.
Speaking Friday at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, he all but recommended that Zimbabwe's long-ruling president, Robert Mugabe, step down.
Like many Kenyans, the United States is increasingly concerned about the potential for more democratic slippage in yet another African country, where there are growing indications that Moi, who is 76 and has been in power since 1978, is maneuvering to run again.
The government has not yet announced a date for the presidential poll that is constitutionally mandated to be held next year, but intimidation of opposition politicians is already evident, according to U.S. officials. There also are widespread fears in both the U.S. and within Kenya's opposition that Moi and his allies will manipulate a nationwide constitutional review and change the two-term limit on the presidency introduced in 1992.
In 1982, the National Assembly amended the constitution to formally make the country a one-party state under control of the Kenya African National Union--the only party that has ruled since independence from Britain in 1963.
That provision was repealed in 1991, limiting the president to two five-year terms. But the last election, in 1997, did not bode well because, according to international monitors, it was plagued by violence and vote-rigging.
