Referendum

This past Wednesday was a major day in the history of Kenya. The country voted and passed a new constitution, removing a constitution that was written and implemented in England in 1963. Many complained that the old constitution gave far too much power to the President, such as the power to take and give basically any land to any person, without any compensation. These sorts of issues have plagued Kenya and the people have tried to get a new constitution for years. The problem is, powerful people are always going to lose out when the status quo changes, so there have been vigorous campaigns to stop new constitutions from being accepted in the past.
This time around, the major arguments against the constitution were that it allowed Muslim courts for inheritance, and marriage laws if both parties wanted to use those courts and were Muslim. Another issue was abortion, a clause in the constitution allows it only if a doctor believes the mother will die. Many people thought this was a way for abortion to come into Kenya and some churches were against it.
Despite these things, opinion swayed to the "yes" side as people saw that the positive changes to the way the government was structured outweighed the negative. Of course the things people were most worried about were violence and election rigging. The 2007 presidential campaign ended in the deaths of over 1000 people, the displacement of thousands more, and the results were believed by most to be rigged. Thankfully, this time the election basically went off without a hitch. "Yes" won 66%-34%, giving a clear mandate to move forward with the constitution. There were no reports of violence and even the "no" side is willing to move forward. Some of the people I've talked to have said this is one of the first times they've been proud to be Kenyan. May God Bless Kenya and their new constitution.